Throwback Thursday-Armin Van Buuren

This week’s #TBT features one of the top 5 greatest artists in the history of Electronic Dance Music. Armin Van Buuren was born on December 25, 1976, in Leiden, Netherlands. Just like many other artists featured in Throwback Thursdays, Armin began to produce music at the young age of 14. His style is a balance of small portions of progressive house to go along with a high dosage of trance with vocals occasionally thrown into the mix. He is arguably the best DJ to come out of the rich history of great Dutch Dj’s as he has been ranked number 1 in the highly controversial yet coveted DJ Mag Top 100 Dj’s list a record 5 times, and currently sits at the top of the chart for the first time since he won it 4 consecutive years from 2007-2010. Previous Throwback Thursday’s have discussed very successful radio shows like Tiesto’s Club Life, but nothing can quite compare to the prolific radio show called “A State of Trance” that has aired weekly since 2001. The radio show is arguably the most listened to radio show in the EDM industry as there are reportedly 25 million listeners that tune in 26 countries. AVB usually shares his new productions  in the radio show to go along with the newest and hottest trance tracks from all around the world. He has come out with 4 studio albums, 76 (2003), Shivers (2005), Imagine (2008), and Mirage (2010) to go along with 2 Remix Albums, 1 compilation album, and many State of Trance Dj Mixes. The 3 songs featured in this article are In and Out of Love, Orbion,  and Rapture(Remix).

 

In and Out of Love – 

This song came out on Armin’s third studio album called Imagine, which came out on April 17, 2008. Although the first song in every TBT is usually one of the first song’s that paved the road to success for the artist, this song came out in the middle of Armin’s long and heralded career. This is a pretty typical trance production by the State of Trance superstar, as he is very well known for incorporating vocals and has done a a great deal of collaborations with dozens of upcoming and fantastic vocalists.

 

Orbion – 

This song only came out a couple of years ago even though it feels like yesterday. Although this is considered as a newer AVB production, it contains many of the superstar’s original characteristics that brought him all the fame and fortune he received over a decade ago when he burst onto the scene as the kind of trance. Armin has the special ability of creating fairly long songs that are able to keep the listener involved and wanting to never hear the end of the song. The reason why Trance is such a difficult genre to comprehend and appreciate is because there are many different and deep layers in the song that must be explored, and Armin Van Buuren gives the listener a maze full of deep layers of music blended into this song and almost of his other songs.

 

Rapture – 

Like every other TBT, there needs to be at least one remix featured to show the diverse and wide range of skills demonstrated by the artist in not only producing music, but remixing it as well. The original version of this song is a classic throwback in its own right, and these Nadia Ali vocals have been remixed by a myriad of producers in the EDM industry, including Armin Van Buuren himself.

 

If one wants to listen to more AVB, The Bangin Beats would suggest listening to his weekly podcast called A State of Trance, which puts on the newest and hottest trance songs that come out worldwide. Armin co-founded Armada music which is a trance based label that originated in 2003 and has several successful artists on its label, and their songs are usually featured in ASOT episodes every week.

*It has also just been confirmed that Armin Van Buuren will be coming out with his 5th studio album on May 3rd! The album will be called Intense.