No. 1: David Guetta
From: Paris, France
DJ style: All forms of dance music
Best known for: Two Ibiza residencies and chart domination
“It might sound crazy,” says David Guetta, “but I still make music every single day, because I still see it as a hobby and a passion. Even when I want a break, I just move to making a different style.”
Now more than four decades into his career, Guetta continues to operate at full speed, releasing over a single a month in the past year. 2025 has been one of his most varied too, with releases including the trap and hip-hop influenced track ‘Lucky’, with MORTEN, collaborations with Afrojack, Martin Garrix, Hypaton, Nicky Romero, Hugel, MK, Fatboy Slim, a new single with Sia, in addition to a remix for fictional K-pop group Huntr/x.
Many of these collabs were born during an annual two-month songwriting camp in Los Angeles, and many more are dreamt up while travelling billions of miles (probably) playing across the US, Europe, Asia, the Middle East and just about anywhere else with electricity. “I have 50 more songs ready to go,” he says, despite his already ferocious output this year.
“Everything is cycles. In the past I’ve made records using no samples, then I made ‘I’m Good’ and I did four years of just working with samples,” he continues, “and now I feel like for the more pop side I want to go back to composition, acoustic instruments with electronic, and that’s why I’m doing this Motown, Amy Winehouse-type of feel. But I’m also doing something with Marten Hørger, which is super, mega analogue-sounding straight four-four. The most exciting thing for me is being creative and going away from what everyone else is doing.”
Outside of being a bi-coastal North American headliner for LIV in both Las Vegas and Miami, summers are anchored in Ibiza. He lives there for a full month, which is more time in one place than at any other time of the year. It is also somewhere he has enjoyed reconnecting with his musical youth, having visited DC10 with his 21-year-old DJ son, who also plays on the island under a pseudonym. “We saw Chris Stussy, his music was amazing, and the reactions were huge. It really inspired me and reminded me of when I started out.”
Speaking from his coastal studio on the island while overlooking an Azure blue Mediterranean sea, he then admits that he took a big gamble with his own career this year. “I could have kept on Hï Ibiza. The club is smaller, we sold out every week, and the parties were great. But when I was offered something at [UNRVS], I saw it as a big risk and challenge that I wanted to take.”
Enter Galactic Circus, a supersized clubbing utopia and his most ambitious residency to date. Every Friday from mid-June until early October he has helmed a secret haven for “rebels and renegades” and played extended four-hour sets deep into the morning that are “full of new music and much more improvised from deep house to tech-house, just like I used to.” They are where he leans more into the craft of DJing and selection, while he admits his long-running F*ck Me I’m Famous at Ushuaïa is party-centric and fun. “It’s very feel-good, we’re not trying to be credible, we’re trying to be incredible.”
As for the rest of the world, they get treated to the full HD and technicolour Guetta live experience with his show, The Monolith. It sees him play in front of a towering LED structure with cutting-edge and sci-fi-inspired visuals in places like India and Saudi Arabia. The day before Guetta speaks to DJ Mag, two back-to-back dates at the Stade de France in Paris were announced for June 2026, and both sold out the same morning. That’s 160,000 tickets. “I was very scared. It’s one thing to play festivals, but selling hard tickets is not very easy. Not many DJs can do it, especially this amount.”
But Guetta is not like other DJs. By reclaiming top spot in this year’s poll, the Frenchman has become only the third person to win the title five times, alongside Martin Garrix and Armin van Buuren. “I’m very honoured,” he says. “It still means a lot to me because the greatest feeling in my life still, truly, is playing new music for people and seeing their reactions.”
