Martin Garrix: Songs and Collaborations
A Dutch producer aged 17 in 2013, an unforgettable track, and a career built on genre-blending collaborations that followed.
Animals at 17: The Moment Everything Shifted
2013. Martin Garrix, a Dutch producer aged 17. The track: Animals. What happened next was unprecedented in electronic music. An infectious melody. A driving bassline that builds inevitably. A drop that compels movement. Released to the world and it became inescapable. For a moment, and in many ways for the years that followed, dance music looked different because one teenager understood how to build something truly magnetic.
The Sound That Followed
Martin Garrix's production toolkit includes progressive house, electro house, big room house, and future bass. Genres that blend high-energy club-ready production with pop songwriting sensibility. His best work pairs driving rhythms with catchy, memorable hooks. Melodies that stick. Drops that land. Production that serves the song, not the other way around.
The Collaborators He Chose
Bebe Rexha. Dua Lipa. Khalid. Troye Sivan. Macklemore. These weren't random partnerships or placeholder features. Each collaboration represented Garrix's effort to expand his sound and reach audiences beyond dance music's traditional boundaries. His work with Bono and The Edge from U2 on We Are the People showed someone thinking bigger than electronic music alone. He wanted to work with legends, to learn from them, to show that electronic music belonged on the same stage as rock history.
Sentio: A Different Kind of Statement
His 2022 debut studio album Sentio shifted something important in his career. No longer primarily a singles artist or remix producer. Garrix committed to a full album, to a cohesive artistic vision and complete statement. Most artists at his level avoid this risk. Garrix chose it. It showed an artist thinking in longer creative arcs, not just building individual tracks for individual moments.
The Bigger Picture
Martin Garrix proved something crucial: electronic music at the highest artistic and commercial levels could be both authentically electronic and genuinely accessible. He bridged underground credibility, rooted in progressive house and serious production craft, with mainstream success through strategic collaborations with pop vocalists and rock legends. Most artists choose one lane. Garrix somehow managed to excel in both simultaneously, without compromising either.