THE 1000 BEST SONGS IN THE WORLD EVER.

395-Darude-Sandstorm.

2000-Number 3 single.

Best Bit-At 5.00. With this song Darude became the first ever artist from Finland to have a top 3 hit in the UK singles chart.

Darude is the stage name of Electronic Dance Music producer Toni-Ville Henrik Virtanen, who was born on July 17th, 1975, in Eura, Satakunta, Finland. While being the DJ at a friends party Virtanen played the 1996 song ‘Rude Boy’ by Leila K several times in a row, this earned him the nickname ‘Rude Boy,’ which eventually morphed into ‘Da Rude,’ and then ‘Darude.’ To date he has released four studio Albums between 2000-2015, and 14 singles, of which four have reached Number 1 in Finland, while in the UK he has achieved three top 20 singles. Darude has also released a multitude of remixes of other artists work between 2000-2019, including a 2000 remix of ‘Played-A-Live (The Bongo Song’) by the Safri Duo (see also best songs 557.)

‘Sandstorm’ was initially released in Finland in October 1999, and following it’s success was released in many countries in 2000, it was the first single release from Darude’s debut studio Album ‘Before the Storm,’ released in September 2000. The song was written by Darude who chose the instrumentals title because the ‘Roland JP-8080’ synthesizer used in the song displays the text ‘sand storm’ on startup. ‘Sandstorm’ was produced by Jaakko Salovaara, who goes by the stage name of ‘JS16,’ he was also born in Finland. Before starting a long working association with Darude he was best known for producing the Finnish ‘Hip-Hop’ group ‘Bomfunk MC’s,’ whose best known song produced by ‘JS16’ was the 2000 UK Number 2 single ‘Freestyler.’ ‘Sandstorm’ went on to become the biggest selling 12 inch single worldwide in the year 2000, and has since gone on to sell over 1 million copies to date.

‘Sandstorm’ can be filed under the genre of ‘Trance’ music. Trance is a genre of Electronic Dance Music, it’s roots can be traced back to the late 1980’s, and would develop in the early 1990’s in Germany, before spreading throughout the rest of Europe. It can be described as a melodic offshoot of Techno, and House Music. Other genres of music that are often incorporated in Trance include Classical music, and Film music.