Darude
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Darude (Ville Virtanen) (July 17, 1975) is a Finnish DJ. His artist name Darude comes from the start of his career. At a party with some friends, he played Swedish artist Leila K's track Rudeboys several times in a row. His friends started calling him Rude Boy after the track. The name evolved to the Rude, da Rude, and finally Darude.
Hoping his tracks would be big hits someday, Darude started making his music on a PC first, and then moved on to samplers and decks. His first hit single Sandstorm, was a result of a collaboration with Finnish producer and artist JS16 or Jaakko Salovaara, the man behind successful artists like Bomfunk MC's and Dallas Superstars. Darude landed a deal with JS16's 16 Inch Records, and co produced the song with him.
The song first conquered the Finnish and other European charts before creeping onto the UK charts (via the Internet at first, getting airplay in discos and clubs before it was officially released to a waiting audience), and finally taking the world by storm. In June 2000 Darude became the first Finnish artist ever to reach top 3 position on UK's single chart. The song was the worldwide number one selling vinyl record in the year 2000, a record of sorts for a trance number.
The second single Feel the Beat followed in Sandstorm's success, becoming a #1 hit in Finland before becoming a worldwide smash. Darude toured the world for nine months in 2001.
In 2002 he released his second album Rush. This album was less of a success than his previous works, but is still considered relatively good.
Today, Darude is considered a strong trance/electronic artist by many, and Sandstorm can still be heard at dance clubs worldwide.
Notes
According to a newspaper story, Darude once spotted the famous Finnish folk musician Kirka Babitzin in a train, and asked him for his autograph. Babitzin refused, saying "You're too young to like my music anyway. Why don't you go ask that Darude guy for his autograph?" Darude answered that that would be a bit too difficult, because he was himself Darude.
Links
- Official Darude site (http://www.darude.com/)
- Blue Chip Records (http://www.bluechiprecords.com/)
- 16 Inch Records (http://www.16inchrecords.com/)
- Official JS16 site (http://www.js16.com/)