David Guetta
Pierre David Guetta is a French DJ and record producer. He has sold over 10 million albums and 65 million singles globally, with more than 30 billion streams on Spotify. Guetta was voted the number one DJ in the DJ Mag Top 100 DJs polls in 2011, 2020, 2021, 2023 and 2025. In 2013, Billboard ranked his song "When Love Takes Over" as the number one dance-pop collaboration of all time.
He released his debut album, Just a Little More Love, in 2002. Later, he released Guetta Blaster and Pop Life. Guetta achieved mainstream success with his fourth album One Love, which included his breakthrough singles "When Love Takes Over", "Gettin' Over You", "Sexy Bitch" and "Memories" ; the former three reached number one in the United Kingdom. His fifth album, Nothing but the Beat, was met with continued success, containing the hit singles "Where Them Girls At", "Little Bad Girl", "Without You", "Titanium" and "Turn Me On". In 2018, he released his seventh album 7, which included twelve tracks under his alias Jack Back. In 2019, he announced his creation of the EDM subgenre "future rave" along with fellow producer Morten Breum; they released a collaborative extended play, New Rave in July 2020. In 2022, he released the single "I'm Good ", which remains the third longest-running chart-topping song on the US Dance/Electronic chart.
Guetta's accolades include two Grammy Awards, an American Music Award, six Electronic Dance Music Awards and a Billboard Music Award. In June 2021, he sold his recorded music catalog for US$100 to US$150 million.
Early life
Guetta was born and was raised in Paris. His father, Pierre, was a sociologist who was born in a Moroccan Jewish family. His mother, Monique, was of Belgian descent. Through his father, Guetta is the younger half-brother of the prominent French journalist Bernard Guetta and French-Italian actress Nathalie Guetta. He also has a half-brother, Dominique Vidal and a half-sister, Joëlle Vidal from his mother's first marriage to French cybernetician Jacques Vidal. David Guetta began his music career as a disc jockey in Parisian nightclubs. At the same time, he read economics and social policyat the Paris Nanterre University.
Career
1984–2000: Early work
Guetta began to DJ at the Broad Club in Paris. He first played popular songs, and he discovered house music when he heard a Farley "Jackmaster" Funk track on French radio in 1987. The next year, he began hosting his own club nights. In 1990, he released "Nation Rap", a hip-hop collaboration with the French rapper Sidney Duteil.In the mid-1990s Guetta played in clubs including Le Centrale, the Rex, Le Boy, and Folies Pigalle. Released in 1994 Guetta's second single, a collaboration with American house vocalist Robert Owens titled "Up & Away", was a minor club hit. In 1994, Guetta became the manager of Le Palace nightclub and he continued to organise parties there and in other clubs, such as the "Scream" parties in Les Bains-Douches.
2001–2003: ''Just a Little More Love''
In 2001, Guetta and Joachim Garraud founded Gum Productions, and in the same year Guetta's first hit single, "Just a Little More Love", featuring American singer Chris Willis was released. Willis was vacationing in France when he met Guetta. Guetta's debut album Just a Little More Love was released in 2002 on Virgin Records and sold over 300,000 copies. The follow-up singles,, were released in 2002. Guetta released a compilation, F*ck Me I'm Famous, in 2003, named after his party in Ibiza. It included "Just for One Day ", a remix of David Bowie's song "Heroes". Later in his career, Guetta continued recording compilations under that title. Along with Garraud, Guetta remixed Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark's 1980 hit "Enola Gay" for The OMD Singles.2004–2006: ''Guetta Blaster''
Guetta's second album, Guetta Blaster, was released in 2004. It was supported with the release of four singles: "Money" and "Stay" featuring Chris Willis and "The World Is Mine" and "In Love With Myself" featuring JD Davis. In 2006 the Just a Little More Love single "Love Don't Let Me Go" was re-released as a mash-up with the Tocadisco remix of "Walking Away" by The Egg. The mash-up single entitled "Love Don't Let Me Go " was charted higher than the original release of the song.2007–2009: ''Pop Life''
In 2007, Guetta's third album Pop Life was released. The album was successful in the UK and Ireland as well as in mainland Europe. According to EMI in 2010, the album has sold a total of 530,000 copies worldwide. The lead single "Love Is Gone" reached Number 1 on the American Dance Chart and charted on the Billboard Hot 100."Delirious" featured the vocals of Tara McDonald who also co wrote the record. The song was released as the album's fourth single on 31 January 2008. The song charted No. 27 Austrian singles chart, No. 17 Belgian chart, No. 2 Belgian singles chart. No. 12 Dutch singles chart, No. 16 French singles chart, No. 16 Swiss singles chart, No. 36 Hungary singles chart, No. 29 Romanian singles chart, No. 51 Swedish singles chart. The remixes of the song, including mixes by Fred Rister, Marc Mysterio, Laidback Luke, and Arno Cost and Norman Doray were released. A video clip for the song was filmed by Denys Thibaut in Montreal, featuring Guetta and Tara McDonald, picturing an executive assistant throwing paint all over her boss's office. McDonald also sang and co wrote "You're Not Alone" from this album.
He has played in many countries around the world to promote the album. He played in Mauritius in January 2008, accompanied by French rapper JoeyStarr. In the same year, he and his wife Cathy also planned a new event which took place in the Stade de France on 5 July 2008. The event was called "UNIGHTED", he performed with Tiësto, Carl Cox, Joachim Garraud and Martin Solveig in front of a crowd of 40,000.
In 2009, he was placed third in the "Top 100 DJs" poll by DJ Magazine, and was elected "Best House DJ" by DJ Awards in 2008. Since April 2009, Guetta had his own radio show on the internet radio station RauteMusik on Saturday evening. The show was afterwards moved into Radio 538, being aired every Friday evening after Tiësto's Club Life.
2009–2010: ''One Love'' and international breakthrough
Guetta's fourth studio album, One Love, was released in August 2009. Its first single "When Love Takes Over", which featured Kelly Rowland, peaked at No. 1 on the UK Singles Chart and topped many other countries worldwide, selling over 5,5 million copies worldwide. His second single from the album, "Sexy Bitch" featuring Akon, became his second No. 1 in the UK. "One Love" featuring Estelle, "Memories" featuring Kid Cudi and "Gettin' Over You" featuring Chris Willis, Fergie and LMFAO followed. As of May 2011 the album had sold three million copies worldwide. Guetta's fourth studio album One Love was nominated as "Best Electronic/Dance Album" at the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards. His song "When Love Takes Over" featuring American R&B singer Kelly Rowland received two nominations; Best Dance Recording and Best Remixed Recording, Non-Classical, and won the latter. After conflicts over whether or not an album re-issue should go ahead, One More Love was released on 29 November 2010. The first single, titled "Who's That Chick?" featuring Rihanna was released a few weeks prior.On 16 June 2009, The Black Eyed Peas released the Guetta-produced "I Gotta Feeling" as their second single from their fifth studio album, The E.N.D.. It became a worldwide hit topping the charts in seventeen countries. It became the most downloaded song of all-time in the United States with almost 7.5 million downloads and in the United Kingdom selling more than 1 million copies. He was nominated twice for his work with The Black Eyed Peas at the 52nd Grammy Awards; in the category Record of the Year for "I Gotta Feeling" and Album of the Year for their album The E.N.D.. In 2010, Guetta co-wrote and produced Kelly Rowland's "Commander" from her third album Here I Am. It peaked at number one on Billboard's Hot Dance Club Songs chart in the United States, and reached top ten positions in Belgium and the United Kingdom. Guetta has also co-produced "Forever and a Day", which was Kelly's next UK single from that album. Guetta also produced the singles "Acapella" and "Scream" for American singer-songwriter Kelis's fifth studio album, Flesh Tone, released on 14 May 2010. "Acapella" was released as the lead single on 23 February 2010 and topped the dance charts in the United Kingdom and United States. On 28 June 2010 American rapper Flo Rida released the single "Club Can't Handle Me" featuring Guetta. The song is included on the soundtrack album to the American 3D dance film Step Up 3D and Flo Rida's third studio album, Only One Flo .
2011–2012: ''Nothing but the Beat'' and Jack Back Records
Guetta's fifth studio album, Nothing but the Beat was released on 26 August 2011. It was released as a double-disc album; one disc being vocal and the other being electronic. Guetta was inspired by rock bands such as Kings of Leon and Coldplay to add rock influences to his dance productions. "Where Them Girls At" featuring Flo Rida and Nicki Minaj, the first single off the album, was released worldwide on 2 May 2011. "Little Bad Girl", with Taio Cruz and Ludacris, was released as the second single on 28 June 2011. The third single, "Without You" with Usher, was released on 27 September 2011. Guetta has also released four promotional singles for Nothing But the Beat which were "Titanium" with Sia, "Lunar" with Afrojack, "Night of Your Life" with Jennifer Hudson, and "The Alphabeat". The album also features the hit singles "Sweat" with Snoop Dogg and "Turn Me On" with Nicki Minaj.Guetta teamed up with Afrojack and Tara McDonald again to release "Pandemonium" on his FMIF Ibiza Mix 2011 compilation through EMI records.
Guetta also performed alongside Nicky Romero and Nervo at London's Alexandra Palace on 1 June 2012.
A re-release of Nothing but the Beat, titled Nothing but the Beat 2.0, was released on 7 September 2012. The first single from the album, "She Wolf ", which saw Guetta collaborate with Sia yet again, was released in support of the album. The next single off Nothing But The Beat 2.0 was confirmed by Guetta as "Just One Last Time" which features vocals from Swedish duo Taped Rai. In 2012, Guetta also made an album named Nothing But The Beat: Ultimate, which combined the two albums Nothing But The Beat and Nothing But The Beat 2.0 together. Summer 2012 Guetta played in Finland in Weekend Festival and he was the festival's headliner also for year 2013. 15 March saw the third single release from Nothing but the Beat 2.0 entitled "Play Hard". The song features vocals from American singers Ne-Yo and Akon.
Nothing But the Beat is a feature-length biographical documentary about Guetta's rise to fame, featuring many of his collaborators, including Kelly Rowland, will.i.am and Snoop Dogg. It was financed by the energy drink, burn, with whom Guetta became a brand ambassador from 2011. Together with burn, Guetta also provided support and mentoring for the burn-sponsored "burn studios residency" program for up-and-coming DJs.
Guetta also wrote, produced, and featured on Rihanna's seventh studio album, Unapologetic, and acts as the support act for the European leg of her Diamonds World Tour.
In 2012, Guetta created a new record label known as Jack Back Records, where he intends to focus only on electronic music releases. The label is named after a project Guetta started alongside Nicky Romero when they remixed the song "Wild Ones". The premiere release of the new label was "Metropolis", another one of his collaboration with Romero, which also became a track from Nothing but the Beat 2.0. The label also included releases from the likes of Daddy's Groove and other collaborators, as well as a two-track EP from production duo Spencer & Hill. All of the label's releases can be found on Beatport.