Armin Van Buuren Imagine Review
The World’s Number 1 DJ Releases New Trance Album of Artist Material
World renown Dutch DJ, Armin Van Buuren releases Imagine, his latest artist album filled with trance beats and jump in the air tracks
Dutch DJ, Armin Van Buuren, the acclaimed world’s number one DJ, radio host, and record label executive, releases a new album of original artist material, Imagine.
His third such studio album strips elements of trance and fuses them with pop to create a danceable album that sounds just as good on the home stereo, portable music devices as it does in the clubs.
Like Moby, Paul Oakenfold and other popular DJ’s, Van Buuren co-wrote and co produced all the tracks on the album and invited relatively unknown studio singers to lay down the vocals for the album’s 11 tracks.
Unlike the aforementioned DJ’s, Van Buuren, on Imagine, doesn’t try too hard to fit into popular culture by sacrificing the trance elements of his music in favour of more hip-hop sounding tracks.
Imagine remains a pure dance record from the first note – that is until a baffling guitar solo interrupts the lead track mid way through, before going back to pumping dance beats and electronic noise.
Nothing’s Going Wrong on Imagine
The album works as one of the world’s number one DJ’s sets would. The first song, the piano-driven “Imagine”, slowly builds to a thumping orchestral wall of sound beckoning party people to populate the floor, then stretches the vibe throughout the rest of the album.
Lead single “Going Wrong” features vocals from Chris Jones and sounds surprisingly pop and radio friendly, something not normally associated with a DJ who has built a reputation and devout following in the circuit dance party scene. Unsurprisingly, the remaining tracks on the album feature vocals from female singers, harder beats and more elements of club trance.
Adding vocals to his tracks takes the music away from pure trance, but make no mistake; Imagine is constructed for the floor. As on most trance records, the depth of the lyrics is tissue paper thin and serve only as a catapult to a deeper connection with the rhythm of the backing beat.
Most tracks revolve around common relationship themes of falling in love, falling out of love (In And Out Of Love), getting over love (Fine Without You), hanging on to love at all costs and solving all relationship problems on the dance floor.
Sound Of Goodbye
While the album begins with a trinity of club anthems “Imagine”, “Going Wrong”, “Unforgivable”, that inspire an uncontrollable urge to move, the mid section of the album drags until songs blend into each other without any real stand out tracks – which, in trance music sets, is not necessarily a bad thing.
On the dance floor this works fine. The same beat comes back time and again ensuring continuous dance, but to sit and listen to this album for listening sake, it becomes monotonous. Best keep this album for its intended purpose – dance, dance, dance.
The iTunes version of the album also includes two bonus tracks “If You Should Go” and “Sound Of Goodbye (Simon En Shaker Mix)”.
