Maybe it's just me, but I just don't GET trance and happy handbag house. I'm sure it's fucking MAGIC when you're in some club called Euphoria, pilled out of your head and banging on about 'feeling the rush'. But, in the cold light of day, it all sounds like one big yawn to me.
This type of music can go two ways, vocally. You've either got some 50 year old black diva, giving it LOADS, the whole I-wish-I-was-Aretha Franklin- job, or you've got some pretty little blond haired thing, who looks nice, and can sing in tune, but sounds awfully reedy when compared to her 'diva' counterpart. Either way, the lyrics usually consist of some cliched, written-on-the-back-of-a-fag-packet shit about either (a) love, or (b) going out for the weekend.
Musically, and this is where I have my biggest gripe with this genre, it is SOOOO predictable.... The same old beat, the same old cheesy synthesiser that didn't sound out of place on a Black Box record 10 years ago, the same old break from the drum machine halfway through so everyone can get their breath back before the rousing finale.... ARGH!
I'm not saying that I've hated EVERY trance song that's ever been in the charts. OCCASSIONALLY, a song comes along with a melody intruiging enough to draw my attention away from the mundanity of the production. 'As The Rush Comes' by Motorcycle has a particulary lovely tune, for example. However, usually, these tracks fail to engage my HEAD, my HEART, or my DANCIN' FEET!... and, if a song can't engage ANY of those three things, it's got nothing.
Right... I'm off with a sawn off shotgun to track down Sasha...