What's Up With M.o.s.

[sazabi]

Gavin,

If you're out there, tell me what the hell's the story over at my fave (before they sold out to the Aussies) trance compilation label, Ministry of Sound. Their annuals used to be essential listening and a good indicator of hot dance/ trance/ chill albums for the year.

Now they are just commercial crap. Sure their packaging on the 3 disc sets is classy, but does that make up for the sub-standard contents.

Local outlets reckon the whole dance scene is dying, I'm sure they haven't been to Ibeza or the festivals in Germany (not that I have either!!!)

You're in the know, what dya reckon?

Damon

[Gavin_S]

Heya Sazabi-

All I can really offer on this one is my own thoughts,as i'm unfamiliar with the actual reasons behind the over commercialisation of the mentioned branding.

We in Nz are in a middleground musically at the moment- Although Trance and hard house still flourishes with the younger clubbers it seems to be the last generation of clubgoers that have moved onto more sedate,almost commercial venues and are listening to the type of music you are talking about.

These are the people who basically firmly established the electronic music culture in NZ-around 1997-98(when Kroad in AK opened its doors to it)-now these people are 8 years older,and their music tastes have altered somewhat.

I assume that this has happened in various countries,and the M.O.S label(knowing that they have already got this market of people buying their cds)have moved with them. This group of people primarily have decent revenues to spend,which is always an incentive to change the product....

My thoughts on the Local scene is not one of it dying-just changing in form.This ties with the above paragraph,and the original H/House and trance listeners have kinda gone one of three ways.

1) they buy the commercialised house albums,still go to more "refined" dance parties to create their own"in crowd"

2)they listen to Drum and bass/breaks and are still full on clubbers but into a more "underground" scene

3)they've dropped it all together,listen to ZM and 97.4(no offence to members that do)and frquent restaurants and cocktail bars if at all.

I don't think the scene is dying-its just that people now have a lot more choice ans selection of electronic music than a couple of years ago.This will be why M.O.S have shifted their marketing to apply to a much wider number of potential purchasers.

Hope my thoughts may help?

open for discussion if you wish to chat further-always got time to talk tunes!!

regards,

Gav :gav:

[sazabi]

Thanks for the informative reply Gavin. I guess it all makes sense as nobody is getting any younger (even me damn it!!!). Still, I yearn for the days when I attended Lightspeed et al when I was living in Auckland during the late 90's. The scene at the time, as you will agree, was electric. I also seemed to be a lot fitter (funny about that).

I've been moving away from the hard trance myself, getting into some of the down beat (Bent, Monte La Rue, Chicane etc etc), also this music my fiancee finds more approachable.

Being in Palmy now I'm somewhat detached from the Dance/ Chill scene, as the local stores cater to students and Top 40 fans (cooool).

What sort of vinyl you mixing at the moment?