30 Incredible Things We Bet You Didn't Know About Armin Van Buuren

13 December 2017, 10:13 am EST By Ruby Karnick

Armin van Buuren, a world renowned DJ, record producer and remixer, has 12 DJ Awards, 27 International Dance Music Award's, and 5 DJ Mag Award's, to his name, in his career spanning over 20 years. Here are some really interesting facts about the Dutch DJ:

Van Buuren was awarded with the Golden Harp, for his contribution to Dutch music, by BUMA/STEMRA at the 2010 Buma Harpen Gala in Hilversum, Netherlands, on March 3, 2010.
His 2008 studio album, Imagine, entered the Dutch album charts at No. 1, a first for a dance music artist in Dutch music history.
Foreign Media Games released "Armin van Buuren: In the Mix," a music video game, on November 12, 2010, produced in collaboration with Cloud 9 Music and Van Buuren's Armada Music label. The title was released exclusively for the Wii console.
The first song "Waiting for the Night," from the fifth studio album "Intense," featuring the singer Fiora, released on January 2013, was the theme song to the Dutch film "Loving Ibiza" (Verliefd op Ibiza).
Becoming a professional musician is Van Buuren’s dream, despite the promise of a lucrative career in law in the Netherlands, where he finished his law degree in 2004.
It was at the age of 14, when he started making music, after being inspired by French electronic music composer Jean Michel Jarre.
Van Buuren was awarded as the Most Popular International DJ by The Golden Gnomes, on October 20, 2010. This was a week before, he was announced as the #1 DJ by DJ Mag, for the fourth consecutive year.
On New Year's Eve 2009, he collaborated with his brother, guitarist Eller van Buuren, at Together As One in Los Angeles, U.S., which was also the last event of his "Armin Only: Imagine" world tour.
In 2009, Van Buuren married Erika van Thiel, his girlfriend for nine years. Their daughter Fenna was born in July 2011, and their son Remy in July 2013.
In the United States, Van Buuren holds the record for most entries, with a total of record twenty-one entries, on the Billboard Dance/Electronic Albums chart.

The first club in which he began working was Club Nexus, where he reported played multiple sets a week, most of which lasted six or more hours.
Van Buuren hosts “A State of Trance”, a weekly radio show that mostly play trance music and other genres. The show reportedly has 41 million listeners in 84 different countries, propelling him to superstardom with heavy following of trance fans globally.
The music video of second single "In and Out of Love," from his third studio album "Imagine," has been viewed over 150 million times on YouTube. The video features Sharon den Adel from the band Within Temptation.
He along with Maykel Piron and David Lewis, co-founded Armada Music, a Dutch record label. The name Armada is derived from the first two letters of the founders' first names.
He is said to have become a DJ, while he was just a student. He played more than four times a week during school holidays.
In 2011, he was appointed Officer of the Order of Orange Nassau, a civil and military honour that was founded by Dutch Queen regent Emma, for his services to music.
He started his label Armind together with United Recordings, in 1999 and released Gig – "One", which was well received.
His third studio album "Imagine," released on April 18, 2008, entered the Dutch album chart at number one, and at number 4 on the Billboard Dance/Electronic Albums chart, in the United States.
He has won twelve DJ Awards, twenty-seven International Dance Music Awards and been ranked the world’s number one DJ by DJ Mag a record five times, four of them consecutively.
In the year 1997, he had his first success with a track called "Blue Fear", which was released under the Cyber Records label.

On January 12, 2008, Van Buuren was given the "Buma Cultuur Pop Award," the most prestigious Dutch music award.
Van Buuren was the subject of a book, Armin Only: A Year in the Life of World's No. 1 DJ (2009), by Dutch author Coen Bom, in which he reported on the superstar DJ's hectic life and tried to find the secret of his extraordinary success.
His fourth studio album "Mirage," released on September 10, 2010, debuted at #3 in the Netherlands, at #113 in the United Kingdom and at #148 in the United States on the Billboard 200, while at #5 in the Dance/Electronic Albums chart.
It was reported that he wrote a song for the English singer Seal, but the collaboration did not work out, due to the release of Seal's greatest hits album, "Hits."
His performance for the newly crowned King and Queen of the Netherlands, Willem-Alexander and Máxima, in 2013, is one of most notable performances in his career.
He was the first solo dance artist to play “The World’s Most Famous Arena”, New York’s Madison Square Garden. The event was sold out.
He was honored with the Key to Leiden (The Freedom of the City), an honor bestowed by a municipality upon a valued member of the community, by the City Mayor in the year 2011.
On February 2, 2017, Van Buuren officially opened the new "A State of Trance" radio show studio, located in the Armada headquarters, in Amsterdam as part of the celebrations for the 800th episode of the radio show.
In 1999, Van Buuren met Dave Lewis who introduced him as a DJ in England and the United States.
In 2014, his single “This Is What It Feels Like” featuring Trevor Guthrie, was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Dance Record, making him one of the only four trance artists to ever receive a Grammy nomination.