Armin's Diary

[Gladius]

[shadow=red][/shadow]
Dear Friends,

I'm on my way to Australia as I write this. I can't wait to see some sunshine, go diving and relax for a little bit. I'm touring with TWO TRIBES again and this time Markus Schulz is travelling with us. I always love to travel with Markus. We'll have a lot of fun as always! The Australian- and New Zealand crowds are two of the best in the world to play for.

This is also the month where I'm compiling ASOT 2006. I have a lot of new great music I'm looking forward to share. Compiling a compilation can be harder than making an artistalbum because the story of the mix has to be right. So all I do the whole day is listen to music. My mood changes a lot and it's very hard to make a decision. But all tracks have to fit in the story, even if that means dropping some of the biggest tracks.

So what else is new?

The Armin Only DVD is now in stores and it reached nr.1 in the dutch DVD chart. I'm very proud of this as it shows how much dancemusic is loved by many people. The DVD is very personal as you can see a lot of things behind the scenes.

I upgraded my studio with some new equipment and made some plans for the new year. I have a lot of new, rare, remixed and unreleased material and I'm thinking about releasing a special unmixed album with the full 12" versions. Then working on a new artistalbum.

Last week I heard I've been nominated for an Edison for 'best dance album' in the Netherlands. I guess you can compare this to the grammy's in the US. In Russia they voted 'Shivers' the best foreign album and I'm really proud of that. In November Shivers won the Best Album at the Release Awards during the Amsterdam Dance Event. When I finished 'Shivers' I wasn't too sure if it would work but I was very pleased with the work myself. It got mixed reviews at the start as some people expected something else maybe. This proves that you should always do your own thing and never listen to comments too much. As much as I appreciate reviews, they're always personal opinions. And I always appreciate an honest opinion. The biggest compliment I got was from the sister of a good friend who said she didn't like trance but she loved my album! ha ha

I'm still blown away by that myspace.com thingy. It's where people meet on the net! I advised a lot of my collegues to start a page as well as it's a great way to promote your music and gigs. I wish I could answer every e-mail I get though. There are simply too many!

I had a meeting with the guys from the radiodepartment from London last week. They look after the distribution of my weekly radioshow 'A State of Trance'. They told me that based on rates the show has over 1.000.000 actual listeners worldwide every week! The show is now nationwide on FM in 20 different countries. XFm in the south of the Netherlands, Mexico & Romania have been added to the list and the reactions have been huge! And to think that I often do my show on my laptop in my boxershorts in a hotelroom... the crowds I play for are always smaller than a millilon, but at least then I'm dressed... ha ha

So who sais trance is dead with these facts? I keep getting that question during interviews and I keep telling them that (although some may not like it)Trance is now a part of modern day music, like rock or hip hop. It's just that the cheesyness that is no longer accepted as pure trance. But what is trance? Trance isn't a formulaeric kind of computer music, like when you buy one of these keyboards you buy in a toystore and you press 'demo'. Trance is a journey through EDM for me. A lot of my collegues start calling their music 'progressive' when it's just trance but with another bassline, afraid for the cheese stigma. Play what you like, call it what you like, as long as you can dance to it is what I say!

Another question I get a lot from people is why I never get annoyed by people asking for a picture etc. Well, how can u get annoyed by people who share the same passion?

That's it for this month. I hope you're well, whereever you are!

love

Armin

See www.arminvanbuuren.com for more details.

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