The Tik Tokification of Trance: American Primitive, Prog, and Doom in the Age of the Short Attention Span

The airwaves crackle with a new kind of static. Not the white noise of analog decay, but the jittery pulse of dopamine hits,the rapid-fire succession of meme-able moments. Attention spans shrink, morphing into goldfish blinks as TikTok dictates the rhythm of our consumption. Music, once a sprawling canvas of sonic exploration, is chopped into bite-sized pieces,force-fed through an algorithm-curated machine.

This, however, is not an entirely new phenomenon. The seeds of this sonic reduction were sown long ago in the fertile soil of American music. The repetitive riffs of primitive guitar, the hypnotic grooves of prog rock, the crushing dirges of doom metal – all whispered promises of a different kind of trance, a self-induced hypnosis long before the hypnotic scroll of TikTok.

In the hands of American primitives like Link Wray and Ry Cooder, the electric guitar became a ritualistic instrument,conjuring swirling sonic vortexes with a few simple chords and primal distortion. Their music wasn’t concerned with intricate melodies or complex structures; it was about creating a trance-inducing groove, a sonic mantra that burrowed deep into the listener’s psyche.

Prog rock, in its own way, offered a different path to trance. Bands like Pink Floyd and King Crimson weaved intricate tapestries of sound, layering textures and melodies to create expansive sonic landscapes. But within these landscapes,there were often hypnotic passages, repetitive motifs that lulled the listener into a state of focused attention, a trance induced not by simplicity but by intricate sonic kaleidoscopes.

Doom metal took the hypnotic qualities of heavy music to their logical extreme. Bands like Black Sabbath and Electric Wizard built monolithic sonic edifices, crushing riffs and glacial tempos creating a sense of inescapable dread. Their music wasn’t meant to be danced to; it was meant to be experienced, to envelop the listener in a sonic fog that blurred the lines between time and space.

These seemingly disparate genres – primitive guitar, prog rock, and doom metal – all share a common thread: their ability to induce a trance-like state in the listener. And in the age of TikTok, where attention spans are measured in milliseconds,this quality resonates in a new way. The repetitive riffs, the hypnotic grooves, the crushing dirges – they all offer a temporary escape from the relentless barrage of information, a moment of focused immersion in a self-contained sonic world.

But is this a new kind of trance, or simply a repackaging of old ideas for a new generation? The answer, perhaps, lies somewhere in between. The technology may have changed, but the human desire for sonic escape, for a temporary break from the chaos of the world, remains constant. And as long as that desire exists, music will continue to find ways to induce its own brand of trance, whether through the distorted simplicity of a primitive guitar riff or the meticulously crafted soundscapes of prog rock. The TikTokification of music may be a symptom of our times, but it is also a reminder of a timeless human need: the need to lose ourselves in the sound.