A household name in his native France, multi-million selling producer, recording artist and promoter DAVID GUETTA has found the rest of the world is rapidly catching up since the N. American release of his third album Pop Life (Ultra Records, Oct 9). “I played Coachella earlier last year,” he says, of LA’s revered rock festival. “It was huge! I saw an article in USA Today that said the highlights of the festival were Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Arctic Monkeys, Rage Against The Machine… and David Guetta. That’s crazy! I was really impressed.”
Yet perhaps the only crazy thing is: what took them so long? David has been DJing since the age of 17, when he first spun tunes at the Broad Club in Paris. Throughout the early nineties, he continued to wow crowds playing an eclectic party set of house, hip-hop and garage at Parisian venues as diverse as Le Centrale, Le Boy and notorious former cabaret spot Folies Pigalle. Many people would be more than content with this but it remained important to David to take his music to as wide – and diverse – an audience as possible. This would translate well, when on November 4th last year, David accepted the World Music Award for the Best Selling DJ.
But David has proved that this gift is no fluke. The 14 tracks on the album Pop Life show that we’re dealing with the rarest of talents – someone who can move hearts and minds on the dancefloor and the Top 40. “It’s a balancing trick,” he says. “When you make a track for the club, it is the repetitiveness that makes it work best; so it becomes hypnotic, like a trance. But when you listen at home, you look for music with a lot of changes – because that is what gives it emotion. And I love emotion. So I have to have both.”
Two huge tracks have made quite an impact in the N. American territory, “Love Is Gone” (classic Guetta, featuring Chris “Just A Little More Love” Willis on vocals) and “Baby When The Light”. An enormous highlight for David is “Love Is Gone” which has crossed over to the mainstream, and is currently charting at major Top 40 radio stations throughout the country, namely the largest in the US, Z100 in NYC, placing in at number 7. With 24 adds to radio stations in the US just this past week (May 12), and an overall 1000 spins so far, the story is just beginning for the mainstream aspect behind “Love Is Gone”. This single won four awards at this year’s Winter Music Conference in Miami, two at the IDMAs, and one at industry show, The Club World Awards. It’s David’s best album to date and also suitably-named, from the one DJ who knows pop isn’t a dirty word; whose club nights are open to one and all.
“Yeah, some DJs say pop is a dirty word, but I’m trying to be different!” he says. “Of course dance music is pop music! I’m always faithful to my community, but this album also has big, quality pop melodies. It’s the best album I’ve produced. I’m really happy and proud of it.”