Tiësto

To many, Tiësto is quite simply one of the greatest floor-filling superstar DJs in the world, on a par with Paul Oakenfeld, Paul Van Dyk, and the dynamic duo of Sasha and John Digweed. Listen closely to his productions, however, and you'll find he's also a top-notch sculptor of trance tracks. This is especially true of his 2004 studio album, Just Be, a beguiling collection including a juiced-up classical tune by Samuel Barber — "Adagio for Strings," better known as "that sad music from Oliver Stone's movie Platoon" — that's sure to give some music theory teachers an instantaneous heart attack. Want Tiësto at full Balearic throttle? Cue up "He's a Pirate" and feel the sweet burn. Tiësto transforms Jordin Sparks into a cascading roman candle, in Next Steps.

Bob Dylan once said that having a meal with Bono was like dining on a train, because you really felt like you were going somewhere — and the same locomotive analogy can be adapted to suit Tiësto. Here's a DJ who knows when to summon the raw adrenalizing power of a speeding engine, and when to match the mood of the passenger staring wistfully into the middle distance of a moving landscape. So here we contrast the soaring vocal euphoria of "Just Be" with the pounding space horns of "Urban Train," before sampling some of Tiësto's pop-shopped remix work with Britney Spears ("Piece of Me") and Jordin Sparks ("No Air," which is taken into a whole new, entrancing space). As our Deep Cuts prove, Tiësto produced quite a debut with 2001's In My Memory.

Many cynics wrote Tiësto off as just another jet-setting trance DJ by the late '90s, as he cashed hefty cheques around the world simply by spinning records for six hours straight, sometimes until the sun came up. They were proven wrong when Tiësto dropped his full-length debut, the synth-spraying, boundary-pushing In My Memory. While a simple 4/4 dance beat remains at the core of its songs, the producer side of Tiësto isn't afraid to follow a rhythm or drum loop right off the deep end: check out the original full-length mix of "Obsession" a magnificently propulsive, energizing groove crafted in collaboration with Tom Holkenborg, aka Junkie XL.

Ask superstar trance DJ Tiësto what his motto is and he'll say, "I feel the energy from the crowd and I try to give it back." That simple line of reasoning — the very reason dance music's such a barrier-free art form — is exactly what's earned him crossover accolades over the past decade, from three consecutive "Best DJ in the World" awards in DJ magazine (2002-2004) to an invitation to play live at the Summer Olympics in 2004. The Netherlands-born star is more than a performer, though; he's also one of the most sought-after producers and remixers in dance music today. Basically, if you've gone out to a major club at any point in the past decade, you've heard this guy's music, whether it's an endorphin-flooding trance mix like "In the Dark" (featuring Christian Burns), a transcendent hook-up with Sigur Ros frontman Jonsi — the title track to 2009's Kaleidoscope — or a crate favourite like "Dance4Life".