Now I admit to my age, 42, but I will not admit that I am middle aged. On the contrary, I like to think of myself at least as aware of what is happening on the scene in regards to television, film and music.
I have been always eclectic in my choice of music. Jazz, rock, classical and so on have filled my listening choices since my teenage years. At various times, I have lingered on a particular genre for a while then move onto something else that strikes my fancy.
One genre I keep returning to is dance/electronica/trance. I first started listening to this music when I lived in Toronto back in the early 90s and had access to music that I never had before living in Newfoundland. The club scene was terrific as well. One thing about living Toronto was that it was then and remains so today, a very cosmopolitan city, where the world is represented in some part of the greater metro area. So I had access through the record stores (remember those?) to all sort of imported music especially dance music from Europe. When I lived in Europe later on, it was like gaining access to a mother lode of incredible music. Plenty of bass beats, great hooks, very danceable.
So it remains to this day that listening to dance/electronica/trance remains a favorite choice of mine. In this genre, most of the acts are relatively anonymous. All that really matters is the beat. Very few superstars per se especially considering that much of the music is derived from sampling other peoples’ music. The artists are called DJs for a reason: they spin up tracks and start layering sound upon sound without touching a keyboard or a guitar.
The top acts come and go but one artist that is showing some longevity is DJ Tiesto. A Dutch DJ, he has had many hits in the past several years and his albums have consistently good. Like many others, he is not above doing collaborations with other DJs or recording artists. In the Dark with Christian Burns was a hit last year over seas. He was part of the opening ceremonies for the Athens Olympics in 2004 and has been voted top DJ in the world several times now.
One thing that he has been able to do like no other act in trance has done before or rarely even now, is to performed solo concerts in front of thousands of people. His popularity and great music are more than enough to carry an audience. So it is with this track Elements of Life with the video taken in front of 25,000 people in a concert in Copenhagen Denmark.