Some heroes don’t wear capes. Instead, they handle tons of data.
Exactly what you just read. Have you ever wondered “Gosh, I wish I could dive deep into the roots of Trance“? Wonder no more. Koncz Dávid, Trance-devoted individual, delivered the news a while back on the Trancefix forum. In the middle of writing a book about the history of the genre, he decanted onto compiling an astonishing database.
“I’ve been writing a book about Classic Trance music for a while now“, says Dávid on the Trancefix thread about the project. “My original intent with [the database] was to aid my research for the book and make processing large amounts of data (and also the writing) faster. But then I quickly realized that it could be a useful and valuable source of information for all Trance lovers out there, hence, I decided to make it available to everyone“.
“The database is considered mostly finished, and it has almost every classic trance track ever made listed in it. I say ‘mostly’ because I had to make some minor compromises to save a significant amount of work time.”
-Koncz Dávid
What’s Inside The Database
The document, whose goal was “to compile all Trance (and Proto-Trance) tracks made between 1988 and 2009“, contains a jaw-dropping 150,000 entries, give or take. A general collection is available, but the creator suggests we look at the second document, which is a Google Sheets file which dedicates one sheet for each year. For each entry, call it ‘Song’, there can be up to four different dimensions of information available: Artist(s), Track, Length, and Style.
Dávid is positive he’s compiled the entirety of the first — and arguably most important — two decades of Trance history with, at least, 90% accuracy. Which, if you know a thing or two about collecting data, is a huge accomplishment, even more so when you’re dealing with historical archives which are prone to be blurry and confusing.
Test your knowledge: walk on the shallow waters of ‘Take Me Away‘, ‘For An Angel‘, ‘Traffic‘, ‘Children‘, ‘Greece 2000‘ and so many other renowned classics, or dive deep into the dark, unexplored Mariana-Trench depths of the best hidden stuff out there. Ever heard of the Dave Audé Drum & Space Mix of Cleveland Lounge‘s ‘Drowning‘ from the year 2000, or the Sonorous remix of the Above & Beyond featuring Zoë Johnston classic ‘No One On Earth‘? Yeah. Nearly everything’s here.
The Limitations
Not only is there some margin for error due to the unknown, the database also has some clearly stated limitations which narrow down the number of entries from a gazillion to that sweet 150,000. For a start, all songs below 4 minutes have been left out. “Most tracks under that are just radio cuts anyway or tracks mislabeled as Trance on Discogs“, says Dávid. “This way, I can filter out at least 5-10 thousand (probably) unnecessary tracks that I don’t need to listen to“. Also, all tracks included have their vinyl copies somewhere in the world. No tapes, cassettes, or digital-only stuff. Duplicates have been filtered to the minimum possible, radio and other shortened versions have also been excluded, and acapellas are not a part of the set. Finally, no Various Artist compilations have made it into the database. And even with all of that in mind, the resulting number is absolutely massive. Which goes to show the size of Trance at some point in time.
For all the hardcore details about the document, refer to the Trancefix forum thread.
Access The Database
What? Did I hear you say you were interested? As you should. Have a peek right here. We’ve linked you to the original database, filtered by years, as the creator intended. Also, speaking of the creator, check out Koncz Dávid’s work, here.
Better yet, have a look while playing this in the background! Be sure to stay tuned to our page for the latest news and views from our beloved Dance industry.
