It’s the biggest show of the summer. Two hundred tons of structure, 2,000 square meters of covered area and up to 80 kilos of confetti. The visit of David Guetta, one of the most famous DJs in the world, in Punta del Este, will inaugurate the 2023 musical agenda with a real party of dance and hits. The appointment will be this Monday at Stop 6 of Playa Bravaand the latest tickets range from $5,330 to $10,250 and are sold at
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The numbers of the French show are as big as those that have accompanied his career. He has 66 million monthly listeners on Spotify and is the 10th most listened to artist on the platform.
His video clips amass 16 billion views on YouTube and his latest big hit, “I’m fine (blue)”, engraved with Baby Rexhait doesn’t stop playing on the radio or adding listeners day after day.
But beyond the figures, the 55-year-old DJ and producer is one of the most striking cases in the sector. We owe him the diffusion of electronic music all over the world, and thanks to records like One Love (2009) a Nothing but the rhythm (2012) made the dynamic of collaborations the most popular habit in world music of the past 15 years.
It’s a way of working that began with Just a Little More Love, his debut album in 2002. The reason was as simple as it was practical: Guetta doesn’t sing. So she recruited the artists Chris Willis, Barbara Tucker yes John Rozzi give voice to their productions. That record, which included the title bowling hit, did extremely well: it sold 300,000 copies worldwide. However, the figure sounds paltry compared to what would come later.
It’s all due to”When love takes over”, which he recorded in 2009 with the voice of the former Destiny’s Child Kelly Rowland. The fusion of pop melodies, an irresistible piano loop and a highly danceable electronic pulse was an instant hit. The theme had a mandatory presence on MTV —just before YouTube became the world music thermometer— and managed to get his work to stations that didn’t play electronic music on the radio.
The real consecration would come a few months later, at the hands of the black Eyed Peas and its mega-hitI have the feeling”. The theme, a nightly preview anthem, was that year’s biggest hit and achieved electronic music’s biggest breakthrough to date. From that point on, “EDM” or electronic dance music ceased to be part of a niche to reach the mass audience.
Guetta closed that sacred year with the album One Love, a veritable avalanche of holiday hits. The list is long and includes “Memories”, “Gettin’ Over”, “Sexy Bitch”, “One Love” and “It’s the Way You Love Me”. It sold three million copies and made the Frenchman the most popular producer of the moment.
But the phenomenon was only just beginning. In 2012 it was the turn of Nothing but the rhythm, a double album even more successful than the previous one. In the first he explored the logic of collaborations and reaped new successes — “Titanium”, “Sweat”, “Where are the girls“and”Play hard”—, in which he took advantage of the interest in EDM to launch a repertoire of instrumentals that brought a generation closer to the style.
After Listens (2014), another hit record, released 7 (2018), a work that marks a change in his style. It’s that at that time there was so much electronic music influence in the industry that the phenomenon started to fizzle out. The songs were tinged with a more organic and minimalist approach that renewed their proposal.
Months ago he released “I am good (Blue)”, a collaboration with Bebe Rexha sampling “Blue”, the anthem of the one hit wonder eiffel 65. It reached the top spots on Spotify and YouTube and confirmed that, after so many years, Guetta remains as relevant as it was in 2009.
With such a successful repertoire, he will arrive in Punta del Este on January 2, to offer a show that promises pure joy.
