Martin Garrix - Biography and discography, all albums and songs

Martin Garrix is a Dutch DJ, music producer, and songwriter, and one of the leading figures of the festival electronic scene of the 2010s and 2020s. The musician’s real name is Martijn Gerard Garritsen. He was born on May 14, 1996, in Amstelveen, near Amsterdam.

Garrix gained worldwide recognition at the age of seventeen following the release of the instrumental track Animals. However, his career was not limited to a single big room hit. In the following years, he recorded songs with Bebe Rexha, Dua Lipa, Usher, Khalid, Bono, The Edge, Ed Sheeran, and other artists, founded the STMPD RCRDS label, and topped the DJ Mag Top 100 DJs ranking five times.

Childhood and Interest in Music

Martijn grew up in a musical family. His father played guitar, his mother played piano, and his sister studied piano and violin. At the age of eight, the future producer began learning guitar, gradually moving from performing other people’s songs to writing his first original melodies.

A decisive moment came during the opening ceremony of the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. Eight-year-old Martijn saw Tiësto perform and was amazed by the way one artist could control the mood of a huge audience through electronic music. The track Traffic made a particularly strong impression on him. After that, he installed FL Studio and began teaching himself how to create beats, synthesizer parts, and arrangements.

His first performances took place at school parties, weddings, and small private events. Garrix used a portable equipment setup, while his parents accompanied him on his early trips because his age prevented him from entering many club venues on his own.

Herman Brood Academie

Martijn gained professional knowledge at the Herman Brood Academie in Utrecht. The curriculum covered not only music production but also the structure of the industry, including contracts, copyright, media relations, and the fundamentals of artist promotion.

Garrix graduated from the academy with high marks while simultaneously releasing music and performing outside the Netherlands. By the time he completed his studies, his touring schedule was already expanding rapidly, forcing him to combine classes, studio work, and travel.

First Releases

Garrix’s first notable works appeared in the early 2010s. In 2012, he released BFAM with his friend Julian Jordan through Spinnin’ Records. That same year, the young producer created an official remix of Christina Aguilera’s Your Body, which was included on the expanded edition of the album Lotus.

At the same time, he released music under the name GRX and collaborated with other Dutch producers. One of his important early works was Torrent, recorded with Sidney Samson and released through Tiësto’s Musical Freedom label.

During this period, Garrix gradually developed his own version of festival house: short introductions, a powerful bass foundation, sharp drops, and melodies that remained recognizable even within long DJ sets.

Animals

The breakthrough came in 2013 with the release of Animals. The main version of the composition was created in a home studio when its author was sixteen years old. The track used almost no vocals and was built around a minimalist melody, a heavy kick drum, and a distinctive big room drop.

Support from Tiësto and other well-known DJs helped Animals spread rapidly through festival sets. The composition topped Beatport, while Garrix became the youngest producer at the time to reach number one on the platform’s main chart.

In the United Kingdom, Animals debuted at the top of the national singles chart. At seventeen, Garrix became one of the youngest artists ever to lead the UK Singles Chart. In the United States, the track reached number 21 on the Billboard Hot 100, an unusual achievement for an almost entirely instrumental festival composition.

The success of Animals coincided with the peak of big room house’s international popularity. The composition became one of the defining recordings of mid-2010s festival EDM, but it also created a serious challenge for its author: audiences and industry figures expected him to repeat the same formula endlessly.

Wizard, Tremor, and Gold Skies

After Animals, Garrix continued releasing music designed for major festival stages. With Jay Hardway, he recorded Wizard; with Firebeatz, Helicopter; and with Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike, Tremor.

Tremor became an official part of the Sensation festival campaign and one of the main live compositions of 2014. During the same season, Garrix released Gold Skies with Sander van Doorn and DVBBS, recorded Turn Up the Speakers with Afrojack, and performed at Coachella and on the Mainstage of Ultra Music Festival Miami.

The singles from this period retained the scale of Animals but gradually became more melodic. Garrix increasingly used emotional chord progressions and vocal parts, preparing his transition from instrumental big room to song-oriented progressive house.

Working with Usher and New Directions

In 2015, Garrix released Don’t Look Down with American singer Usher. The composition differed significantly from his early festival material: instead of a minimalist drop, it centered on a vocal melody, piano chords, and song-based dramatic development.

The collaboration with Usher demonstrated that Garrix did not intend to remain exclusively a creator of instrumental EDM tracks. The combination of electronic arrangements with powerful vocal choruses later became the second major direction of his work.

This period also included The Only Way Is Up with Tiësto, Dragon and Break Through the Silence with Matisse & Sadko, and Poison. In these works, Garrix alternated between festival house, progressive house, and more accessible vocal electronic music.

Departure from Spinnin’ Records

In August 2015, Garrix ended his collaboration with Spinnin’ Records and MusicAllStars Management. The dispute concerned contractual terms and the rights to music created during the early stage of his career.

The disagreement continued in court. In 2017, the District Court of Midden-Nederland ruled that the agreements with the label and management company were invalid. The conflict became an important stage in Garrix’s professional development and encouraged him to create his own infrastructure for releasing music.

STMPD RCRDS

Garrix launched his own label, STMPD RCRDS, in 2016. The name is pronounced “stamped” and refers to his father’s family business involving collectible postage stamps.

The first release was Now That I’ve Found You, featuring vocals by John Martin and Michel Zitron, released on March 11, 2016.

STMPD was created not only as a platform for Garrix’s own recordings. The label began releasing music by young and established producers working in progressive house, electro house, bass house, tech house, and other styles. Its catalog has featured Julian Jordan, Mesto, Brooks, DubVision, Blinders, Seth Hills, Loopers, and many other artists.

The label later developed its own showcases, festival stages, and STMPD Studios in Amsterdam. Garrix gained the ability to control the entire recording process, from the studio session to mastering, release, and live presentation.

In the Name of Love

One of the main releases of 2016 was In the Name of Love, recorded with Bebe Rexha. The song combined future bass, pop, and progressive house while almost completely abandoning the big room drop that some members of Garrix’s early audience expected.

The composition became a major international hit and established his position not only as a festival DJ but also as a pop producer. The release was particularly important to Garrix himself: he consciously searched for a sound that would differ from the large number of similar EDM compositions being released at the time.

In October 2016, twenty-year-old Martin Garrix topped the DJ Mag Top 100 DJs ranking for the first time, becoming its youngest winner at that point.

Scared to Be Lonely and There for You

In 2017, Garrix released Scared to Be Lonely with Dua Lipa. The melancholic song about a failing relationship continued the direction of In the Name of Love but featured more restrained and atmospheric production.

It was followed by There for You with Troye Sivan. Both compositions demonstrated Garrix’s ability to adapt his style to the voice and performance manner of a particular artist rather than simply replacing the singer over an identical arrangement.

At the end of 2017, he released So Far Away with David Guetta, Jamie Scott, and Romy Dya. By this period, Garrix had firmly established himself between two markets: his instrumental music continued to dominate festival sets, while his vocal singles entered pop charts and radio rotation.

High on Life, Ocean, and No Sleep

In 2018, Garrix recorded Ocean with Khalid. The composition represented his calmest pop side: a soft electronic arrangement was built around Khalid’s voice and made almost no use of the familiar festival drop.

High on Life, featuring vocals by Bonn, sounded entirely different. The song was first performed at the end of Garrix’s Mainstage set at Tomorrowland and immediately became a regular closing track in his shows. It combined a piano melody, a progressive-house climax, and lyrics about the value of living through the present moment.

His collaboration with Bonn continued on No Sleep and Home. The idea for No Sleep emerged after an emotional performance at Tomorrowland: Garrix and his co-writers could not sleep after the show and began writing a new song that same night.

Collaboration with Matisse & Sadko

Garrix’s work with the duo Matisse & Sadko occupies a special place in his discography. Together, they released Dragon, Break Through the Silence, Together, Forever, Mistaken, Hold On, Won’t Let You Go, Good Morning, and Butterflies.

Their joint compositions represent the melodic side of festival progressive house: wide synthesizer harmonies, extended buildups, and emotional climaxes. Over time, this partnership became one of the most enduring creative alliances of Garrix’s career.

AREA21

Alongside his main career, Garrix developed the project AREA21 with American singer and producer Maejor. The project’s first compositions, including Spaceships and Girls, appeared in 2016.

AREA21 allowed the musicians to combine electronic music, pop, hip-hop, and elements of trap. Its visual concept was built around two alien characters observing human society.

In 2021, AREA21 released the album Greatest Hits Vol. 1. It contained twelve compositions accompanied by a series of animated videos created by Titmouse. The album addressed themes including social-media addiction, the desire for recognition, friendship, and the ability to live in the present moment.

YTRAM and a Deeper House Sound

Another side project was the alias YTRAM, the name MartY written backward. Under this name, Garrix releases deeper and more intimate club music.

In 2020, he released Make You Mine with Bleu Clair and RA, Fire with Elderbrook, and Alive with Citadelle. These recordings were closer to deep house, tech house, and melodic house and did not attempt to reproduce the scale of Garrix’s main festival performances.

Different aliases allow him to separate experimental work from his main project, preserving the recognizable Martin Garrix name for major vocal and festival releases.

We Are the People

In 2021, Martin Garrix recorded We Are the People with Bono and The Edge of U2. The composition became the official song of the UEFA EURO 2020 football championship, which was held in the summer of 2021 after being postponed because of the pandemic.

The song was released on May 14, 2021, Garrix’s 25th birthday. Its premiere became one of the largest projects of his career outside the electronic scene. The composition combined The Edge’s distinctive guitar style, Bono’s vocals, and Garrix’s large-scale electronic arrangement.

Sentio

After concerts were canceled during the pandemic, Garrix accumulated a large amount of club material. In the spring of 2022, he began releasing new compositions almost every week and presented the album Sentio on April 29.

The release included:

• Follow with Zedd and vocalist Emily Warren;
• Limitless with Mesto;
• Reboot with Vluarr;
• Funk with Julian Jordan;
• Good Morning with Matisse & Sadko;
• Aurora with Blinders;
• Oxygen with DubVision and Jordan Grace;
• Starlight (Keep Me Afloat) with DubVision and Shaun Farrugia;
• If We’ll Ever Be Remembered with Shaun Farrugia.

Sentio was primarily a club-oriented work created for Garrix’s return to festival stages after the pandemic break. Garrix himself called it his first album and emphasized that he wanted to release the compositions that audiences had heard in his new Ultra Miami set as quickly as possible.

Hero

In December 2022, Martin Garrix and JVKE released Hero. The song was created as the official anthem for the mobile card game Marvel Snap.

An animated video featuring Marvel characters, including Spider-Man, Mary Jane, Scarlet Witch, Vision, Storm, and Black Panther, was produced for the release.

IDEM and Carry You

In 2024, Garrix released the EP IDEM, consisting of club compositions that had appeared in his live program at Amsterdam RAI. The release included Carry You, Breakaway, Biochemical, and Empty.

Carry You was recorded with British duo Third Party and featured Oaks and Declan J Donovan. Garrix had been playing early versions of the composition since 2023, using it as the opening track of his festival sets.

IDEM was followed by Wherever You Are with DubVision and Shaun Farrugia, Smile with Carolina Liar, and Told You So with Jex. The latter single emerged after Garrix heard a vocal excerpt posted by Jex on TikTok and suggested developing it further in the studio.

Fifth DJ Mag Title

Martin Garrix has taken first place in the DJ Mag Top 100 DJs ranking five times:

• 2016;
• 2017;
• 2018;
• 2022;
• 2024.

His 2024 victory allowed him to equal Armin van Buuren’s number of first-place finishes. In 2025, Garrix placed second, behind David Guetta.

The ranking is determined through an open listener vote and primarily reflects the size of an artist’s international audience, demand for live performances, and fan-community activity.

The 2025 Period

In 2025, Garrix significantly expanded his circle of collaborators. He released Angels for Each Other and Weightless with Indian singer Arijit Singh, MAD with Lauv, and Inside Our Hearts with Alesso and Shaun Farrugia.

Together with Afrojack, David Guetta, and Amél, he presented Our Time, a festival track deliberately referring to the sound of the “golden era” of EDM in the first half of the 2010s.

The EP ORIGO was released on October 24. It brought together club-oriented works with Alesso, Armin van Buuren, Afrojack, David Guetta, R3HAB, Matisse & Sadko, and other artists. Garrix presented ORIGO as the conclusion of the cycle that began with Sentio and IDEM, and as a temporary farewell to a series of predominantly festival-oriented projects.

Catharina, Repeat It, and Fireflies

In March 2026, Garrix released the solo composition Catharina. It is a calmer house recording and the first track on which he performed all the vocals himself. The video was filmed in Madeira and Amsterdam and used home footage from the musician’s childhood.

On May 15, 2026, the day after Garrix’s 30th birthday, he released Repeat It with Ed Sheeran. The first version of the song had been created twelve years before its official release, but the musicians returned to the material and completed it only in the mid-2020s. Official release materials also stated that Garrix was preparing a new album.

On July 24, 2026, the musician’s official catalog was expanded with Fireflies, recorded with U2. It continued the collaboration that had begun five years earlier during work on the European Championship anthem We Are the People.

Musical Style

Martin Garrix began his career as a representative of electro house and big room house, but gradually expanded his sound. His discography includes:

• progressive house;
• electro house;
• big room;
• future bass;
• dance-pop;
• melodic house;
• tech house;
• deep house;
• elements of rock, hip-hop, and orchestral music.

The main feature of his production is the combination of a clear melody with a concert-scale sound. Even in heavy festival compositions, Garrix usually builds the arrangement around a chord progression or short theme that can be reproduced on piano or guitar.

In his vocal works, he pays close attention to song structure. In the Name of Love, Scared to Be Lonely, High on Life, and Wherever You Are are not structured as instrumental tracks with added vocals, but as complete songs in which the electronic climax continues the development of the lyrics and melody.

Garrix actively tests unreleased material during live performances. Compositions may remain inside his sets for several years, changing in response to audience reactions. Carry You, Inside Our Hearts, and many of the ORIGO tracks followed this process.

Live Performances

Garrix has performed at Tomorrowland, Ultra Music Festival, Coachella, EDC, Creamfields, Lollapalooza, and other major festivals. In 2025, he continued his residency at Ushuaïa Ibiza, performed a stadium show in Mumbai, and held a series of concerts at Los Angeles State Historic Park.

His shows are built around a large amount of his own material. Lighting scenes, screen graphics, pyrotechnic effects, and transitions are designed in advance for every composition. Recordings of the sets are used by the team for subsequent analysis: the artists and technical specialists review the performance and adjust individual parts of the program.

His annual program during Amsterdam Dance Event occupies a special place in his career. Garrix has presented both regular nighttime concerts and separate all-ages shows at Amsterdam RAI, remembering his own experience as a teenager who could not attend performances by his favorite artists.

Supporting New Artists

STMPD RCRDS has become an important part of Garrix’s professional legacy. The label releases music in different styles and gives young producers access to an international audience, festival showcases, and studio infrastructure.

Garrix regularly includes tracks by STMPD artists in his performances and participates in collaborative recordings. Julian Jordan, Mesto, Brooks, DubVision, Matisse & Sadko, and Blinders have developed independent careers, but their long-term relationship with Garrix and his label helped form a stable creative community around STMPD.

In 2025, the musician also donated £34,000 to Bridges for Music, an organization supporting music education for young people.

Selected Discography

Key Solo and Collaborative Tracks

• Animals — 2013;
• Wizard — with Jay Hardway, 2013;
• Helicopter — with Firebeatz, 2014;
• Tremor — with Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike, 2014;
• Gold Skies — with Sander van Doorn and DVBBS, 2014;
• Don’t Look Down — with Usher, 2015;
• The Only Way Is Up — with Tiësto, 2015;
• In the Name of Love — with Bebe Rexha, 2016;
• Scared to Be Lonely — with Dua Lipa, 2017;
• There for You — with Troye Sivan, 2017;
• So Far Away — with David Guetta, Jamie Scott, and Romy Dya, 2017;
• Ocean — with Khalid, 2018;
• High on Life — with Bonn, 2018;
• No Sleep — with Bonn, 2019;
• Used to Love — with Dean Lewis, 2019;
• Pressure — with Tove Lo, 2021;
• We Are the People — with Bono and The Edge, 2021;
• Follow — with Zedd, 2022;
• Starlight (Keep Me Afloat) — with DubVision and Shaun Farrugia, 2022;
• Hero — with JVKE, 2022;
• Hurricane — with Sentinel and Bonn, 2023;
• Carry You — with Third Party, Oaks, and Declan J Donovan, 2024;
• Wherever You Are — with DubVision and Shaun Farrugia, 2024;
• Told You So — with Jex, 2024;
• Weightless — with Arijit Singh, 2025;
• MAD — with Lauv, 2025;
• Our Time — with Afrojack, David Guetta, and Amél, 2025;
• Inside Our Hearts — with Alesso and Shaun Farrugia, 2025;
• Catharina — 2026;
• Repeat It — with Ed Sheeran, 2026;
• Fireflies — with U2, 2026.

Albums and Major Releases

• Gold Skies EP — 2014;
• Seven EP — 2016;
• BYLAW EP — 2018;
• Greatest Hits Vol. 1 — with Maejor as AREA21, 2021;
• Sentio — 2022;
• IDEM EP — 2024;
• ORIGO EP — 2025.

Martin Garrix emerged in global electronic music at a time when festival EDM had reached the peak of its commercial influence. Animals made him one of the symbols of that era, but his subsequent development demonstrated that his abilities extended far beyond big room house.

The creation of STMPD RCRDS gave Garrix control over the release of his own music and turned him into the curator of an entire community of producers. Vocal collaborations allowed him to move beyond the festival scene, while AREA21 and YTRAM opened space for music that did not correspond with his main live identity.

By the age of thirty, Garrix had built a catalog in which instrumental club tracks coexist with international pop hits, deep house, orchestral arrangements, and songs recorded with his own voice. His career became an example of how early success can be transformed into a long-term project without abandoning the melodic festival sound that started it all.