Song of the Week #3 - "Mirage" by Armin van Buuren
To explain, nowadays, albums usually consist of tracks, each of which can stand on their own. As I understand it, this has been influenced heavily by the advent of digital download as a medium through which consumers may obtain music. With digital download, people can choose specific songs on albums to download on their own, and in programs like iTunes, you can choose specific tracks on albums to play. Prior to digital download, unless a song was specifically released on its own as a single, if there was any one particular track on an album that you liked, you had to go into a music store and buy the entire album on a physical disk or cassette. When you popped your CD, cassette, or vinyl record into your player, you would typically listen to the album from beginning to finish. Sure, it was possible to jump to a specific point on the album by skipping tracks, but the players were coded to start always at the beginning, so it was only natural to just listen from start to finish.
Artists knew this. As a result, they would specifically engineer albums so that the tracks flowed smoothly from one to the other. Perhaps the most famous example is Pink Floyd's 1973 album The Dark Side of the Moon. Notice how, if you listen to the album sequentially, the division between "Speak to Me" and "Breathe (In the Air)" feels arbitrary. If I challenged you to guess the exact point where one track ends and the other begins, you might be off by several seconds! And listen to the musical transition between "Breathe (In the Air)" and the next track, "On the Run". It's so smooth, you might not even notice the dividing point!
With digital download, many producers abandoned this method of crafting albums. Why listen to albums sequentially when you can just jump straight to the catchiest song on the record? The entire concept of the album has therefore been on a decline over the past few decades. Nowadays, an album is probably better defined as a collection of individual, standalone tracks, rather than a unified, cohesive work. However, some producers still do create albums revolving around the good old-fashioned sequential order, and Armin van Buuren's Mirage is one such album. "Desiderium 207" and "Mirage" flow so neatly into each other that they might as well be one track. ("Mirage", naturally, also flows smoothly into the next track on the album, "The Light Between Us".)
"Mirage" falls into a somewhat niche genre of electronic music that originated in Germany called trance. It's characterized by repetitive melodies that continuously develop over successive iterations. It typically starts with a melody that will underlie the entire length of the track, and it will continue to build tension in that melody, making it more complex, adding new instrumentation, filters, and effects. It builds and builds until it reaches a climax called a "drop". This is not your average pop song or even your average EDM song. There are no lyrics. You probably wouldn't hear this kind of music on the radio or stumble across it playing on the street one day, unless you're listening to a niche station specifically tailored for non-pop electronic music. The song is intended to be an experience that you choose to undergo for about 10 minutes. Focus on how the music makes you feel. Try to imagine a situation—a movie in your mind—that might fit the track.
On that note, it is essential that you have a pair of high-quality headphones with which you can listen to this song. It would be even better if you have a dark, quiet room at your disposal, but closing your eyes would be sufficient too. If you really want to be into it, lie down on a bed or couch while listening. The goal is for you to feel completely surrounded by the music, for you to feel lost in the music, for you to escape into the music, for you to be immersed in the music, for you to be entranced by the music. Crappy earbuds, background noise, and a divided attention just won't cut it.
Embedded below is the YouTube video that first exposed me to Mirage. Despite its YouTube title, the video begins with "Desiderium 207" and transitions into "Mirage". (You'd probably be hard pressed to figure out where the division between the tracks is.) If your Internet speeds allow it, try to increase the video quality to the highest possible so that your sound quality is also the highest possible. Alternatively, if you have Spotify Premium, switch your streaming quality to the highest possible and listen to the first two tracks of this album. The vocal for "Desiderium 207" is provided by trance singer Susana.
If you liked "Mirage", check out "Intense", which was also produced by Armin van Buuren, featuring Miri Ben-Ari on the violin. I discovered "Mirage" through, heh, Owl City: Armin van Buuren collaborated with Adam Young on a gorgeous track on Mirage called "Youtopia".