Otto Matta

You're going to have to do better than that to get a laugh out of me. Seriously, you're right. Sony headphones do look better than some Sennheisers. So if you're out for looks, I'd certainly buy them.

The part about the "Deathticle" is very much a joke, taken from this very funny, very well-made spoof that I've been trying unsuccessfully to share in the Entertaining Thread in Off-Topic: Episode 3 Parody

Sorry, OD, but Sonys are no good. Believe me, I owned several pairs for several years. Sennheisers are far better, especially for musicians who want a pure sound, rather than the inflated, fake sound of Sony. I've owned the Senn HD590s, which had great sound but were a little fragile, and more for home listening, and currently own and love the HD280pro model, which has excellent sound, a solid build, and is a perfect monitor headphone for less than US$100. If you do your research at audiophile sites, you'll see that it is top-rated for the money. Not a surprise to me.

I'm a fabulously rich and highly talented musician, so why would I want to collaborate?

Good points. And may I also add that it is hard for most people to dance to it. People generally like their music "sexier", with more of a swing to it, and slower.

I'm pretty sure I don't like it. There are some cool parts to it, but it's somehow not convincing. Edit: The bassline around 1:50 is wicked. The simple lead part at around 6:20 after Yoda says, "Twisted by the dark side," is really cool. Otherwise, nope, I'm not a fan.

The idea of talent is a very ambiguous one. To me talent is not only creating a good track, but making several good tracks over a period of time - consistency. But there's more to it than that. To me a truly talented artist, in any genre, is one who is both good at creating consistently good music, but one who is also good at marketing themselves (which has to be taken into account when one speaks of the job of the artist, since it tends to be much of the work). For some reason artists with the most talent tend to be poor at marketing themselves. Likewise, most of the best artists are crappy at getting their music to the masses. I don't know exactly why that is, but that's what I've seen over the years. Talent is being in the +/+ direction on the graph, and staying there.

Spot on, guys, I totally agree. At the same time, though, I think there is one more important aspect of liking this music. You've spoken mostly about the interior aspects of liking the music, but there are also motivations coming from outside, too, from a "nurture" perspective, rather than the "nature" standpoint. Taking myself as an example, and having known a lot of psytrancers and other electronic music fans, I notice there's a large cultural foundation to the music which speaks to the identity of a person. For instance, I'm the kind of guy who generally cringes at anything that becomes too popular. I don't know why that is, I just do. So when I heard electronic music for the first time I liked it somewhat for the way it sounded (I had been writing my own brand of synthesized music for almost ten years already at that point, but had never heard true electronic stuff). But I think what was as compelling was that it wasn't popular, that I could grab onto it and make it part of my identity and still be somewhat original. I could walk around outside and sneer at the people who were still listening to pop music and feel unique. But the problem with doing so was that it became an awfully lonely business. At some point I wanted to share my music - my identity - with someone. And when one person after another didn't like my music, it was really frustrating. I wanted to bond with people like me, or rather, people who had set up their identities similar to mine. And that's when the Internet came in handy. I could find people all over the world who listened to the same stuff I did, who had similar identities. There was a culture that I fit into, and that was comforting, and moreso because the uniqueness of the music was still intact. So, in short it seems everything has a duality based on the interior and the exterior, between nature and nurture, and these combine in a synergistic fashion to create identity, which is a combination of the individual and his or her culture. And that's why, it seems, people get very defensive about their culture, and why people find it hard to try new music, because it threatens the foundations of the identity they've put so much effort into building.

Okay, thanks for the honest reply.

Going to the first page is SOOOO three days ago or something.

Vibrasphere - Lime Structure

Well that's kinda my point, nick (if you'd open your ears). I, like the vast majority of people, am somewhat closed-minded when it comes to other genres that I don't know intimately. I hear the popular stuff and poo-poo it because it doesn't fit my belief system. But I've heard a LOT of hip-hop - simply because it's pretty much the dominant form of music these days and is therefore everywhere - and I still don't like it. I've heard a lot of jazz and don't like most of it, either. Don't push your shit on me. And I agree not to push my shit on you. That's the point.

So what's the deal? Is it closed for good? We're "not welcome" there anymore? WTF?

How could you, radi? Honestly. You should make it up to poor Charlie by sending him some flowers that have touched Simon's bottom.

I'm not attacking. I'm just trying to get more information. I come from an art background where we got used to describing why we dislike something, rather than just saying we dislike something. No need to answer. Just my curiosity.

Ilkae - Pistachio Island

Okay, some more successful than others. Actually, since you mention Juno Reactor, Charlie, there was this one guy a couple years ago who'd heard Pistolero somewhere and liked it so I burned Shango for him, with Hotaka as a "bonus" track. He was a big hip hop fan, though, and a little concerned about his "rep", so probably only listened to it a couple of times. He told me he liked to listen to it while he was driving. So, not so much of a convert than a passing whim, but I'll change my stats to: 1; 0/~40

Damn, I hate Friday nights, Saturday mornings. This place is like a ghost town. NP: Darshan - Awaken

Hey traveller, nothing against what you said - you have a total right to your opinion - but I was just curious why you don't like his stuff "at all". I'm not a huge fan myself, but your words were pretty strong. What is it that you don't like, exactly?

I've heard the occasional story about how someone here was at some point lent some psytrance and they instantly fell in love with it. This didn't happen to me - I had to dig, dig, dig through loads of used CD stores to find it. But since then I've played it for many people and not a single one has liked it. Some have tolerated it, but none have ever been led to seek out more of it, or even ask for a burned copy or anything. With none has it been that *spark*. Mostly people are just annoyed by it. So my question to you is, how many times have you successfully introduced psytrance to another person? And what is the proportion of your successes versus your failures? Me: 0; 0/~40

Sorry, but Posford did not write that. You'll have to burn it with all the rest.

Ooooo. That's not going to go over well...

Yes, if it matters. But that's the reality. People have generally only heard the popular stuff, and make a broad decision based on that. I would be one of those people bashing Psytrance had I not heard more than just the popular stuff. However, looking back, I have to admit both Juno Reactor and Pleiadians were huge in my getting hooked, so perhaps I'm being hypocritical. But that's not really the point of this topic. The point is, it's interesting to see how easy it is for people to set up walls against something they don't know much about, or have had a brief experience with. I do it. We probably all do it to some extent, and not just with music either. At some point you just have to stop trying to educate people who don't want to be educated - I certainly don't want some dude trying to force hip hop on me, for example - and just let people do what they do. My complaints about Posford and his fandom are more for fun, are more about the principle of the matter than anything else. I'm trying to send a small, humor-laden ripple through a giant, unstoppable wave, and it has no other effect than to make me feel gratified.

I'm personally looking forward to it.

Regarding the herd mentality study topic, I find it interesting to go to other forums for other types of music I like and see psytrance get ripped to shreds. I can't mention it at, say, an IDM or electro forum without a bunch of people dissing me for liking it. Then again, most people have only heard IM and Hallucinogen - the popular stuff - so they really have no context (if I'd only heard these two, I'd probably dis the genre, too). But I try to explain that the genre is fairly broad and that there are some really interesting things being done, and have been done in the past. It doesn't help. People get set in their ways, I guess.