Trance is a genre of electronic dance music that emerged from the British new-age music scene and the early 1990s German techno and hardcore scenes.

Trance music is characterized by a tempo generally lying between 120–150 bpm (BPM), repeating melodic phrases, and a musical form that distinctly builds tension and elements throughout a track often culminating in 1 to 2 "peaks" or "drops". Although trance is a genre of its own, it liberally incorporates influences from other musical styles such as techno, house, pop, chill-out, classical music, tech house, ambient and progressive house.

Now that we got that out of the way, Party Favorz is finally dropping the Ultimate Trance Classics that we've been teasing out for over a year now. We covered 90's House Classics, 90's Eurodance, and now a long overdue and updated Trance Classics. Because the genre grew out of the techno scene in the early 90s and was fueled by pop-up raves in the UK, which quickly spread to the U.S. — it gets a classification all its own.

Like most popular dance music genres, Trance eventually became mainstreamed by corporate music because why waste a good thing that can be aped, recycled, polished, and pushed to the masses in a more palatable form?

Other than the genres listed in the Wikipedia description that were incorporated into Trance — the ground-breaking Progressive House scene was the most influential to Trance, which brought us Faithless, Perfecto and yes, even Club 69 who after riding the house train for years, abruptly transitioned into some hard-hitting tribal, electronic sounds the likes of which no one had heard before.

It wasn't uncommon for DJs to incorporate some of these influences into their sets to offset some of the monotony of straight-up euphoric Trance. The first set showcases that intermixing, while the second set is straight up Trance. The third and fourth sets should lean more toward Trance with some progressive tracks that fit nicely but didn't quite fit into the 90's House Classics series that was recently completed.

One other thing about this series is the 90s and 00s were mixed in together reflecting Trance at its peak. Unlike the original series that was released in 2010, these newer sets not only deliver the big hits that everyone knows but the ground-breaking tracks that fueled the genre from the ground up. There's a lot of territory to cover so the biggest artists were limited to 2 - 3 songs from their back catalog.

All the big names are presented in this four-set series including Tiesto, Ferry Corsten, Matt Darey, Above & Beyond, Chicane, Armin Van Buuren, Sasha, Blank & Jones, and more. While no stone was left unturned in putting this series together — we don't want to hear what's missing or what shouldn't have been included. This is a massive undertaking where just compiling and then culling the track list takes longer than actually mixing them. So if you can do better, go for it.

Volume 2 is already in the bag so you can expect it to drop on Sunday. Until then...ENJOY!

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Album: Ultimate Trance Classics | Volume 1
Genre: Trance, Progressive House
Year: 2022
Total Time: 03:27:42
1. Sasha - Xpander (Extended Mix)

2. Hybrid - Finished Symphony (Extended Mix)

3. Faithless - God Is A DJ (Extended Mix)

4. Gaia - Tuvan (Extended Mix)

5. iiO - Rapture (Armin Van Buuren Remix)

6. The Age Of Love - The Age Of Love (Jam & Spoon Remix)

7. Chicane feat. Bryan Adams - Don't Give Up (Original Mix)

8. The Roc Project feat. Tina Arena - Never (Past Tense) (DJ Tiësto Remix)

9. Dirty Vegas - Days Go By (Scumfrog Vocal Mix)

10. Dido - White Flag (Scumfrog Extended Mix)