David Guetta

From his early days playing Chicago house in French discotheques to his long reign atop the pop charts, David Guetta has revolutionised dance music multiple times. Born in Paris in 1967, Guetta began DJing in the late ’80s, when the shimmery sound known as the “French touch” was taking shape. By the early 2000s, at his F*** Me I’m Famous parties in Ibiza, he had translated that melodic style into a clever merger of pop sass and club swagger. He parlayed that mix into pure platinum with hits like 2003’s “Just for One Day”, an energy-stoking rework of David Bowie’s “Heroes”, and 2002’s “Just a Little More Love”, a sultry bump-and-grind featuring R&B singer Chris Willis. That versatility—along with a knack for killer hooks—would become one of Guetta’s principal calling cards, and as EDM exploded across pop culture at the end of the 2000s, Guetta’s shapeshifting style led the way, yielding ecstatic affirmations (“When Love Takes Over”), feisty come-ons (“Sexy Bitch”) and unstoppable singalongs (The Black Eyed Peas’ “I Gotta Feeling”, which Guetta produced). Since then, his collaborations (Sia, Nicki Minaj) have kept listeners guessing even as his choruses—triumphant as a bottle of bubbly blowing its top—have proven one of pop’s most dependable pleasures.