Enter Sandman

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Darude's “Sandstorm” is the very definition of an earworm. It’s everything uplifting and dramatic about the trance.

“‘Sandstorm’ is a track that, to some people, defines me,” Darude says. “To me, it doesn’t.” 

After all, how was the Finnish DJ/producer, born Toni-Ville Henrik Virtanen and nicknamed “Rude Boy” (Da Rude) for playing a track of the same name early in his DJ career, to know that his first hit would become one of electronic music’s biggest over the last 25 years, racking up hundreds of millions of streams — even after it had been out for over a decade before streaming was even a thing? 

With its Morse-code 16th-note synth riffs, reportedly from the, ahem, “sand storm” preset on a Roland JP-808 (a go-to keyboard of the late ’90s), “Sandstorm” is the very definition of an earworm, framed as it is by its hands-in-the-air strings and cliffhanger dropouts. It’s everything uplifting and dramatic about the trance (techno and house’s more Eurocentric, euphoric, dramatic cousin), made even more remarkable given its relatively simple beginnings. 

The story goes that Darude had worked up a demo version in his modest home studio, then fleshed it out with Finnish producer JS16 in an equally modest studio on an Atari computer. 

In the era of CD burning and ripping, the track was an immediate and categoric smash, played by more accomplished trance DJs like Paul Van Dyk and inspiring endless remixes — official and unofficial (“all the way to the potato flute version,” Darude quips), and still serves as the reference point for an entire genre of high-energy commercial music. (Commercials for the new “Dexter” origin story series airing now, for instance, use a track clearly inspired by “Sandstorm.”)

The track is still a centerpiece of Darude’s live show, but, he insists, it’s certainly not the whole show. Headlining at last month’s Dreamstate festival in L.A., some fans reported he teased the track for 45 minutes before dropping it. Not quite, but understandable, he says. 

“I didn't ‘tease Sandstorm for 45 minutes’,” he says. “But I can see why people would say that. I actually, on purpose, play, one time, fifteen minutes to one hour into a set, an actual ‘Sandstorm’ teaser — just the one. But it’s no huge secret ‘Sandstorm’ is in E minor. I mix harmonically, so often a track or two before ‘Sandstorm’ might be in E minor,” he explains. 

These days, those tracks are just as likely to be his. “I found from my [2023] Together album tour that there's a few tracks like ‘Kaleidoscope,’ ‘Alive,’ and ‘In My Dreams’ that fit really well before ‘Sandstorm’,” he explains. 

“Of course, I never play the same set.”

So what can Darude’s Detroit audience expect New Year’s Eve at Elektricity? 

“It depends on which version of ‘Sandstorm’ I'm playing that night,” he says. “These days I’ve been playing in the 128bpm realm — then jumping straight into the original 136bpm. 

“I don’t think you’ll be disappointed because I haven’t changed my thinking, my style, and my sort of vibe and energy that much. And if you’re coming to my show for ‘Sandstorm,’ then that’s one more chance for me to show you what I do today.”