Tracks that have grown on / outgrown you

[battlejellyfish]

It's probably straightforward but: post tracks you think just got better or worse as years passed by and discuss about the reasons I'll start.

Aged well: Geck-o - Soul Train. Even though I loved Geck-o's tracks back in the days but this was an exception, I didn't understand the hype it gets. I think I started to appreciate it more when I was opening to early hardstyle and hardtrance in general a bit later. It is now one of the tracks in hard dance that puts a huge smile on my face when the break starts and slowly builds up to the main part <3

Aged badly: majority of early raw hardstyle tracks. It's either because I had different taste and also I was listening to hardstyle in shitty headphones or speakers so when I turned back to them years later I couldn't believe to my ears lol

[Soundphase]

Can't think right now, but a lot of tracks didn't age well for me. Hardstyle has always been very transient imo, but there are some tracks that I'll never get bored of

[lilfrenchidiot]

Aged well:
- Donkey Rollers - D.O.N.K.E.Y: hated this track when I first heard it (much later than when it was first played), now I guess I "get" it
- Gunz For Hire - A Storm Is Coming: absolutely despised this track when it was first previewed, nowadays I would not exactly put it in my top 3 (or probably even top 10) of G4H tracks but I came to appreciate it much more
- Blutonium Boy ft Eric Bazilian - Where Did I Go: I'm not even being ironic here; while I don't think it objectively is a good Hardstyle track, I think it still was unironically catchy and kinda ballsy to make a full song with a Hardstyle instrumental

Aged badly:
- Gunz For Hire - Bolivia: thought this was one of the best things I had heard when I first listened to it, nowadays I find it pretty disappointing in regards to the other G4H stuff from that era
- Showtek - FTS: for pretty obvious reasons I'd say Even though I never really loved the track personally tbh :/
- A lot of the former tracks that based everything about having harder kicks, since the kicks have gone much harder nowadays those don't hit nearly as much imo (unless you're in the context of a classics set where the DJ(s) play tracks from around the same time period)

[SKRWD]

Aged well: Alphaverb tunes and AVIO Records in general. I love to play Intractable One and Alphaverb in my sets and "The Hard Way" from Geck-o and Phrantic still sounds modern to my ears!

Aged badly: Hm, I agree on the vast majority of early Raw. There are way too few tracks from that era that fit in my sets.

[ceero]

early raw >>>>>> nowadays raw sry guys

[Emre]

early raw >>>>>> nowadays raw sry guys

Agree to disagree Nowadays raw with modern (especially the gated deep ones) kicks and modern sounddesign makes early raw sound boring as hell imo.

I'll make a list to answer the topic later btw

[battlejellyfish]

early raw >>>>>> nowadays raw sry guys

That's still true for me as well because I found more good gems than nowadays

This one also aged very VERY well Probably the best track of Planet Zany and that era of him in general:

[Soundphase]

This did not age well:



Just because some of the sounds are really cool, it doesn't mean the music is sensational because it's not





This is timeless:


A strong pushing groove in the intro with interesting background sounds creating cool atmosphere, and a melody in the climax which was inspired by an unmistakable hardtrance classic from 1995


A strong intro with a great kick, nothing can be wrong, it's a flawless track

[th3r3zo]

Aged badly


Two of my all-time favorites, but I admit they not aged very well.


I love the Shockerz style but nothing to do with the Aftershock nowadays standards



Unpopular opinion but i think this 2 hits...

Aged well

[Emre]

Aged well:

- Basically everything by Delete, which shows he was ahead of his time
- old HHZ (2006-2012)
- old NC (2006-2014)

Aged badly:

- (some) older euphoric (2010-2014) when the dongs were just too soft and kicks felt more as a detail of the tracks instead of the main driver in tracks as it should be. Does NOT count for all tracks.
- old DBSTF, basically what I said above, tracks like In The Air, those kicks are barely even kicks.
- old Gearbox when xtra raw was still new and it sounded amateuristic as fuck.
- old Rebelion (2014-2017), I love Rebelion, but their tracks sound SO much more clean nowadays. Their sound made the sickest transformation ever.