1998

Album review

During the late '90s when trance began its climb to become arguably the world's most popular form of electronic music, particularly among younger white audiences from affluent urban areas, songs such as "1998" become anthems that affirmed the validity of the genre. Few songs sum up everything that had made trance such a popular genre so fast as well as "1998" does. The song essentially functions as a roller-coaster-type journey, slowly rising and falling but continually moving upward in terms of intensity for the first few minutes. Steadily, one synth riff joins another until the song swells with more synth-driven momentum that one can almost take. Then just as the song seems as if it can go no higher, it drops into an almost standstill lull, from which the song recharges itself. Once the lull transforms itself into a moment of suspenseful tension, hints of the song's trademark synth riff re-appear, eventually exploding into a melodic finale characterized by the driving riff and a choir of accompanying synth washes and accompanying melodies. And it works - well. At the tired conclusion, a sense of exhaustion lingers once the song concludes its journey. Sure, anyone that's a seasoned trance listener has ridden this ride before and visited this motif perhaps a few too many times - it gets rather generic quickly. But for anyone that's new to trance, it doesn't get more candy-coated than this fun little ride into the realm of overly accessible, trance-style pop music. One final note: don't expect much variety among the mixes - Paul van Dyk's ranks as the best, with its sensual aura.

© Jason Birchmeier /TiVo