Armin van Buuren

Since the late 1990s Armin van Buuren has held a prominent position among the leading and most impactful artists in trance and progressive house. He developed a sweeping, filmic approach shaped by early synthesizer innovators including Klaus Schulze and Jean Michel Jarre, scoring initial commercial entries with tracks such as the 1997 single “Blue Fear” before launching his extended series of mix compilations. In 2001 he introduced the long-running radio program A State of Trance, whose weekly transmissions, yearly collections, and mix albums have kept the style viable well past its mainstream commercial height near the turn of the millennium. He established Armada with partners in 2003, and the imprint has continued as a significant force in electronic dance music. After delivering successive albums that reached the Dutch top three, among them the 2008 release Imagine that marked his first appearance on American charts, he became a regular presence on major stages, noted for his energizing performances. He has placed inside the top five of DJ Magazine’s annual Top 100 DJs poll every year since 2002, collected numerous honors from the publication, and received a Grammy nomination for the 2014 track “This Is What It Feels Like.” Following the 2019 studio album Balance, A State of Trance reached its 1,000th episode in 2021. Van Buuren issued the opening installments of Feel Again during 2022, with the complete edition containing all three parts and extended mixes appearing in 2023. Singles such as the 2024 release “Forever (Stay Like This)” occupied him ahead of the full-length Breathe In.

Born December 25, 1976, in Leiden, Holland, van Buuren first encountered music through his father’s extensive record collection. A friend drew him toward dance music, where Dutch DJ and remixer Ben Liebrand became an early guiding influence. This interest led him to explore foundational electronic recordings, resulting in the acquisition of numerous albums by Jarre and Schulze. He purchased computers and turntables to begin creating his own material. While attending Leiden University in 1995 he secured initial DJ appearances at a local student club. Demo tracks placed on compilations that same year generated funds that supported further 12-inch productions. Cyber Records issued his first notable success, “Blue Fear,” in 1997, and the 1999 track “Communication” appeared on AM:PM and reached the UK top 20. He launched his own label Armind in 1999 and met Dave Lewis, the figure who had previously advanced the careers of DJ Tiësto and Ferry Corsten. A collaboration with Tiësto produced the significant Armind release “Eternity,” while marathon five-hour sets attracted wider attention. High-profile remixes of Madison Avenue’s “Don’t Call Me Baby” and Wamdue Project’s “King of My Castle” followed, together with multiple mix CDs on United Recordings.

By 2002 he had reached number five in DJ Magazine’s Top 100 poll, later holding the top position for four consecutive years, and began hosting his weekly program A State of Trance on the Dutch ID&T radio station. Toward the close of 2003 he set a worldwide record for the longest DJ set, lasting twelve and a half hours at a club in The Hague, completed his law degree, and released his first non-mix album, 76. Shivers appeared in 2005, followed by Imagine in 2008; the latter topped the Dutch charts, entered the Billboard 200 for the first time, and generated the hits “Going Wrong” and “In and Out of Love.”

Debuting at number three on the Dutch charts, the 2010 album Mirage included vocalist Sophie Ellis-Bextor along with producers BT and Ferry Corsten. Van Buuren returned in 2013, after issuing numerous mix albums including the annual A State of Trance installments, with his fifth studio album Intense, his strongest U.S. chart performer to date. Bolstered by a 2014 Grammy nomination for the single “This Is What It Feels Like” featuring Trevor Guthrie, the album was expanded in 2015 as Intense: The Most Intense Edition, a four-CD and one-DVD package containing remixes and live recordings. His collaboration with Cosmic Gate, “Embargo,” also surfaced that year and later appeared on his sixth studio album, the Dutch chart-topping Embrace, which featured Gavin DeGraw, Hardwell, and Mr. Probz.

In the years that followed he continued the yearly State of Trance series through its fourteenth edition, State of Trance 2017, and added A State of Trance Ibiza 2018 to his Ibiza collections. He released the EP Blah Blah Blah in 2018 and Trilogy (Armin van Buuren vs. Shapov) in 2019. That same year brought his seventh studio album, Balance, a 28-track set that included collaborations with Rudimental, Above & Beyond, and BT among others; it reached number one on the UK dance charts and entered the top 20 of Billboard’s Top Dance/Electronic Albums chart. Additional non-album tracks appeared in 2020, among them “Leka” with Super8 and Tab, “Punisher” with Fatum, and “I Need You to Know” with Nicky Romero and Ifimay. A double-CD mix marked A State of Trance’s 1,000th episode in 2021, followed later that year by the unmixed collection A State of Trance Forever featuring his tracks and collaborations. Further singles emerged into 2022, including “We Can Dance Again” with Reinier Zonneveld and Roland Clark and “Love We Lost” with R3hab featuring Simon Ward. Feel Again, Pt. 1 and Pt. 2 arrived during the year, with the complete Feel Again issued in 2023 containing all three parts and extended mixes. Additional releases included “Motive,” “Destination (A State of Trance 2024 Anthem),” and the 2024 single “Forever (Stay Like This),” which preceded the full-length Breathe In featuring appearances by Anne Gudrun, Mila Josef, Julia Church, and others.