[meow_cat]

I really wonder if this is 1) Nostalgia.Obviously, the first tracks you heard were your introduction to the genre, so they will have emotional value. 2) First-mover advantage, for the lack of a better word. Obviously you perceive every new track t_i in the context of t_{0..i-1} that you already know. Maybe track t_443, which sounds cheap and commercial now, would have sounded innovative if you heard it as t_33? 3) Genre saturation. How many truly new tracks can be done in psytrance (or any other specific genre) while still being psytrance, before every track sounds like one that was done before? I don't envy the poor souls trying to express individuality in established, specialized genres.

I also wonder whether we could use deep learning to learn representations unbiased by our own history with the genres, and analyze this in a more unbiased way. But I'm also sure you can make the model say whatever you want if you bend the data the right way :)

[Fnoord]

Maybe, I don't think so.

The first time I heard goa trance it was in 90s, Astral Projection. It was too weird for me. I couldn't stand it!

Then in the early 00s I got introduced to psytrance. I started listening to it. Then I refound my love for goa trance (see my other post for examples) and I fell in love. It was an exciting time for me. I fell in love with two women, I used my first time MDMA and mushrooms later on, all of this while I learned to know this fantastic genre.

One could argue it was related to my first listening of AP. But I don't think I heard MWNN before, and I instantly loved it, and he has a very distinctive style. If you take Shakta, he's also made psytance, same with Miranda, MWNN, AP, etc etc but I don't like it.

Also, back in the 90s I listened to a lot of progressive trance as well (the usual names: Paul Oakenfold, Paul van Dyk, stuff mixed by Tiesto, Ferry Corsten, etc etc). How would you explain that?

Plus I like a lot more electronic music, mostly (but not solely) from 90s. I even like some psydub/psybient. But psytance? Nope. Well, barely.

[I_Am_Nous]

I think the bar has been raised by what even casual producers can do with DAWs. I gave a listen to a classic drum and bass album recently (Wormhole by Ed Rush and Optical) and while I really enjoyed it, by the end of the album I can kind of tell how many of the various samples were used over and over again. The Wikipedia article[1] lists the hardware/software they used, and it looks like the recording computer was an Apple LCII. So a lot of what they were able to make seems like it would have been limited by what hardware they were able to finagle.

Compare that to a similarly layered and voiced project in a modern DAW. While the compute requirements have gone up drastically, the complexity the DAW has compressed into a single screen would make it trivial to make a similar album now (from a purely technical standpoint - the album is still the work of an artist).

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wormhole_(album)