All very true. But some of VNV’s instrumentals come dangerously close to trance. I’m thinking especially of Ascension, with a lesser nod to the non-vocal versions of Forsaken.
Some recent compilation CDs I really like:
Tiësto - In Search of Sunrise 6 (I think 5 kind of blows)
The Ultra.Trance series (7 and 9 are pretty good)
Ministry of Sound Annual 2009
Again, the term “trance” is used pretty loosely. These albums all tend to have a combination of house, trance, progressive trance, dance, eurodance. eurohouse, electro house, and dance remixes of pop hits.
Yeah, the beats tend to be more reminiscent of Techno whereas the melodies tend to be more reminiscent of trance. It would be difficult to mix ascension into a trance set but not undoable.
I’m going to have to go ahead and give a recco for Tieso’s search of sunrise 4
CD2 is pretty close to an aural orgasm as i’ve had
The entire Perfect World album by DT8 Project. I love every track on this album and it’s IMO one of the best vocal trance albums ever produced. Here’s a few tracks:
Hold Me Till The End (feat. Alexta)
Winter (feat. Andrea Britton)
Destination (feat. Maria Willson)
some random others:
Yahel & Eyal Barkan - Mr. Club Trance
Tina Cousins - Mysterious Times (Sash remix)
The Orb - Little Fluffy Clouds
Juno Reactor - Samurai
Josh Wink - Higher State of Consciousness
… most of these (above and below) are classics in the electronica world; I’m fudging the lines between subgenres quite a bit, though. If it puts me in a trance, I’m leaving it here 
These are possibly slower/more downbeat than what you’re looking for, but they’ve all made it onto my various “trance” playlists at some point or another:
Orbital - Halcyon & on & on (this is a classic, featured in many many movies)
Rabbit in the Moon - Out of Body Experience (feat. Tori Amos) (this starts a bit slow and mellow, but REALLY pays off)
Delerium - Euphiroa (Firefly) (Every nerve like a firefly, glowing - you can’t get any closer to the trance sensibility than that line! feat. Jacqi Hunt)
Dirty Vegas - Days Go By (Mitsubishi made this famous)
Leftfield - Original (feat. Toni Halliday)
Leftfield - Song of Life
Leftfield - Afrika Shox (feat. Afrika Bambaataa)
Bedrock - For What You Dream Of
John Digweed. Also, Sasha & Digweed (particularly the Northern Exposure album). The genres are blurring together in my mind as this post stretches on (trance? house? prog-house? huh?), so I’ll just stop here and go to bed.
Headrush Dirty Vegas - Days Go By is pretty squarely in the House category. and Leftfield is Drum n Bass/Dub. The rest of the stuff that I recognize is trance. But you’re right definitely good tunes.
But yeah, I think Juno Reactor hasn’t gotten enough play in this thread as Juno Reactor is pretty much the best trance act out there, possibly the best electronica act that exists consistently turning out good stuff.
As for your Delerium comment. The only thing that would be closer to the trance sensibility than that line would be not having lyrics. 
(Sorry couldn’t resist)
Here is an awesome Trance track ‘Pixel vs Sub6 - Teder Beseder’. Don’t let the dub intro fool you. This trance really fucking blows up the dance floor. It sounds sick at 50,000 watts.
I’ll be seeing them live next month.
Lucky you! I saw them live in Miami back in the late 90s; awesome show.
Like elfkin477 I don’t really know what all the differences are.
My absolute favourite source though is Gareth Emery. He’s got a semi-monthly podcast that (IMHO) rarely has duds, and gives you about an hour of awesome tunes and information on where to buy them if you want.
Caught them last summer (Electric Daisy Carnival) and had my mind blown. Can’t wait to see them again.
How about some remixed/re-imagined classic rock:
Streetlife DJs - Queen Machine (kind of a Queen/Goldfrapp mashup)
Deep Dish featuring Stevie Nicks - Dreams (Axwell remix)
Led Zeppelin - Babe, I’m Gonna Leave You (Quivver remix)
Sander van Doorn - S.O.S. (Police remixed)
There’s a series of albums called “Gatecrasher X”, where X can be “Classics”, “Classics 2”, “Immortal”, “Global Sound System”, and others. I don’t own any of these cds (unfortunately) but I hear them on Pandora and love them.
Also, the album"Best of Platipus"is pretty sweet, too.
Finally, there’s a song I love called “Altitude.” Here’s a link. It really gets awesome right about 2:35 into it.
It’s not really important to be 100% accurate with generizing music. But I find it helpful for organizing my MP3 collection. Usually, I just keep dividing songs into smaller and smaller groups based on artist, tempo, style, and whatnot. Basically what I want is to have it so if I listen to a single genre on my iPod, I don’t have the jarring effect of songs that are out of place.
For example, lets start with the 90s. It’s good because dance music of that decade is so distinct from most other pop music of the decade which mostly consisted of non-danceable alt-rock and grunge. So here is how I have my collection organized:
House - 90% of 90s pop dance music probably qualifies as house. (CC Peniston - Finally )
Eurodance - Similar to House but faster and more Euro ( Amber - This is You Night, Cascada would be a more contemporary Eurodance artist)
Freestyle - Mostly latinish dance music (TKA - Maria*)
Trance - 90s trance is generally all instrumental with maybe a few looped vocals. (Robert Miles - Children, Energy 52 - Cafe Del Mar)
Ambient - Similar to trance but lighter and much slower (Moby - Porcelain)
Trip Hop - Similar to Ambient but more lyrical with a hip-hop back beat. (Massive Attack, Portis Head)
Techno - Much faster and lounder (Alpha Team - Go Speed Go, LA Style - James Brown is Dead). Note that “techno” is often eroneously used as a catch-all term for all electronic music.
Big Beat - Loud, catchy, commercially viable tunes. (Chemical Brothers, Fatboy Slim
Drum & Bass - Basically what it says (Dust Brothers, Aphrodite)
Next time, we’ll talk about post 2000 dance and electronic music.
- In 2006 one of my coworkers sent out Reply All mass email asking if anyone needed tickets to the TKA concert on Long Island. She got about 100 replies like “I’d love to, but my 8-ball jacket is in the wash”, “I can’t but if you ask me again in 1992”, “Sure but I need to stop at Dress Barn to get some wifebeaters.” and so on.
This is awesome - I just started getting into trance music a few weeks or so ago - Thanks for the recommendations guys!!
One request though; I hate vocals… anyone have recommends for non-vocal (or mostly non-vocal, like Shpongle) trance? I’m already listening to Shpongle, Hallucinogen, Astral Projection, Juno Reactor and SUN Project.
The latest Solarstone mix CD, Electronic Architecture has very few, if any, vocal tracks. I’ve been really liking it.
I, too, much prefer instrumental trance. If you’d like to post your email address (or PM me) I’ll share my Pandora radio station with you (via the Share feature in Pandora) that I call “Progressive Trance radio.” I’ve cultivated this baby for several years, and, while vocal tracks do pop up from time to time, it’s seeded with plenty of preferences for instrumental trance.