A Decade Under Pressure
The 2010s were the most challenging decade in trance music's history. The rise of EDM as a global commercial force in 2011-2014 swallowed an enormous share of dance-music attention; many of trance's biggest names — Tiësto most visibly — pivoted toward big-room and pop-oriented production. By the middle of the decade, headlines were being written about trance being dead. They turned out to be wrong, but only because a generation of producers and labels did the work to keep the music's identity intact while the wider scene moved around them. The records below are the ones that made that case.
Above & Beyond ft. Richard Bedford — "Sun & Moon" (2011)
The defining trance record of the 2010s was released in the first month of the decade and never relinquished the position. "Sun & Moon" is the record that anyone arguing trance had a future could point to as evidence: a song-first composition built on a chord progression and a vocal performance that would have worked in any medium, dressed in trance arrangement and given trance dynamics. Above & Beyond used "Sun & Moon" as the template for everything that followed, and the broader vocal-trance scene took permission from it to commit fully to songcraft.
Gareth Emery ft. Christina Novelli — "Concrete Angel" (2012)
If "Sun & Moon" demonstrated trance could write a song, "Concrete Angel" demonstrated it could write a hit. The Christina Novelli vocal performance, the precision of the arrangement, the patient breakdown — every element was tuned for both club and radio. The track became a genuine crossover moment for the genre during a year when EDM was supposedly making trance irrelevant, and it still functions as a closer in 2026 sets.
Andrew Rayel ft. Jano — "How Do I Know" (2014) and Aly & Fila — "Lost Language" (2014)
Two records that show how vital uplifting trance remained at exactly the moment commentators were declaring it over. Andrew Rayel's orchestral, classically-informed productions made the case that uplifting could still innovate — that the 138 BPM template still had territory to explore. Aly & Fila's "Lost Language" did the same thing in a different register, building on the deep psy-influenced uplifting they had been refining at FSOE. Both records were proof that the underground core of the genre was, if anything, getting better while the headlines looked elsewhere.
Lane 8 — "Hot Water" (2018)
The 2010s were also the decade Anjunadeep's deeper, slower, more atmospheric brand of progressive grew into a major force, and Lane 8 was the artist most responsible for crystallising that sound. "Hot Water" — the title track from his 2018 album Little by Little — captured what mature 2010s progressive sounded like: patient, melodic, deeply emotional but never overstated, equally at home on a sunset boat and a 6am festival warm-down stage. For listeners who had cooled on the maximalism of 138 BPM uplifting, this was the music that brought them back.
What the Decade Taught Us
The 2010s pushed trance to articulate why it was different from EDM and from deep house and from pop, and the records that survived the decade are the ones that articulated that case best. They are also, not coincidentally, the records that grew the audience: people who came in through Above & Beyond's songwriting, or Lane 8's atmospheres, or Aly & Fila's uplifting purity, are still in the room now. The 2010s did not kill trance. It made trance prove it had reasons to exist — and those reasons turned out to be more durable than anyone in 2014 would have predicted.