ATB’s ‘9 PM’ celebrates 28 years since becoming the first trance track to top the UK Singles Chart

Few trance records from the late 1990s have lasted quite like ATB’s 9 PM. Released in October 1998, the track introduced André Tanneberger to a much wider audience through a melody that became instantly recognisable and would soon push trance further into the mainstream. By the following summer, 9 PM had become the first trance track to reach No. 1 on the UK Singles Chart, spending two weeks at the top and becoming the country’s best-selling song of summer 1999. Twenty-eight years later, it remains closely tied to both ATB’s career and one of the most important periods in trance history.

@edmhousenetwork Released in 1998, ATB’s “9Pm (Till I Come)” is a house music classic of the highest order. With one simple guitar synth, the track has engrained itself in the mind of dance music’s fans everywhere. Nearly 30 years later and ATB’s house music classic still rings true. An EDM track that truly spans generations ♥️ #housemusic #dancemusic #edmtiktok #housemusiclovers #electronicmusic ♬ original sound – EDMHouseNetwork

The Accidental Story Behind 9 PM

For a track that became so important to ATB’s career, 9 PM began without any expectation of becoming a hit. André Tanneberger has recalled working on the melody while showing someone around his studio before they were supposed to go to the cinema. A guitar-style sound caught his attention, and he became increasingly absorbed in the idea until the evening plans were forgotten. When he eventually saved the project, the clock read around 9 PM, giving the track the name that would stay with it.

That same studio session produced the pitch-bent guitar-style lead that listeners would immediately associate with the track. ATB returned to the project the following day, developed the production further and later added the vocal that became Till I Come. What began as an unplanned studio idea ended up giving late-1990s trance one of its most recognisable melodies.

When 9 PM Took Trance to No. 1

Several months after its original release, 9 PM found its biggest commercial audience during the summer of 1999. The track spent two weeks at the top of the UK Singles Chart, remained inside the Top 10 for six weeks and became the country’s best-selling song of that summer. By the end of the year, it ranked among the UK’s biggest-selling singles, placing a trance record alongside some of the period’s biggest mainstream releases.

Its timing made that achievement even more important for the genre. Trance was already growing across clubs and festivals throughout Europe, but records from the scene rarely achieved that level of mainstream chart success. 9 PM helped bring the melodic side of trance onto radio, television and national charts at a time when electronic dance music was becoming increasingly visible outside club culture.

The Record That Changed ATB’s Career

The impact of 9 PM continued with ATB’s debut album Movin’ Melodies in 1999, which also included Don’t Stop!. The album introduced more listeners to the melodic production that had become closely associated with his early work, while later releases including The Fields of Love and Let U Go showed that his career would extend far beyond one breakthrough single.

More than two decades later, the melody returned through Your Love (9PM) with Topic and A7S in 2021. The collaboration brought one of ATB’s most familiar musical ideas into a different period of dance music and became an international success of its own. For listeners discovering the melody for the first time, it created a direct link back to a record first released more than twenty years earlier.

Twenty-eight years on, 9 PM remains one of the tracks most closely associated with ATB and the late-1990s rise of trance. Its story began with an improvised studio melody, but what followed became much bigger: a UK No. 1, the country’s best-selling song of summer 1999, and a record that helped introduce trance to millions of listeners beyond the electronic dance music scene.