What Happened To: ‘Blue Flames’ by Martin Garrix & David Guetta?

In response to the recent crowning of DJ Mag’s #1 artist for this year, we have coincidentally written an article for David by our founder Louis & we are truly proud of him for this achievement. 

Martjin Garritsen is an artist whose releases are always in line for huge success, regardless of commercial or non-commercial. David Guetta, a scene veteran, was and still is an inspiration for the rising Dutch artist. Their first collaboration ‘So Far Away’, released in late-November 2017, was a huge commercial hit. A few months later, it was followed by ‘Like I Do’ with Brooks which also enjoyed similar success in both radio shows and clubs. But, did you know that Guetta & Garrix actually made a track together way before these two even saw the light? Today, we’ll discuss exactly that.

‘Blue Flames’ was premiered during the 2015 Miami Music Week and was showcased in both artists’ respective sets at the contiguous Ultra Music Festival. Unfortunately, it was never played again and although the track is confirmed to be signed by Warner Music Group (as seen in copyright strikes on some Youtube fan previews), no official info was given about a potential release.

The design of the track is simple, maybe too simple in my opinion. The premiered version of ‘Blue Flames’ was probably an early demo of what the track was supposed to be, but it seems that they never finished it. The track uses quite an unusual structure: Intro, Drop, Breakdown, Buildup, Drop, Shorter buildup, Shorter drop, Outro. While the drops mostly sound like the 2013/14 Groovy/Electro House David Guetta, the breakdown and buildup lean towards the old-school Bigroom Martin Garrix.

The reason behind the cancellation of this project is speculated to be the feedback from the fans. ‘Blue Flames’ is definitely not a bad track, but is it good enough to be a collaboration between two such huge acts? I don’t think so. Many fans compared it to a cheap version of the 2012 hit ‘Greyhound’ by Swedish House Mafia. Funnily enough, 2016 saw the release of No Mondays & Asonn ‘Pyro’ which sounds really similar to the drop from ‘Blue Flames’. To this day, we really doubt there will be a release of ‘Blue Flames’ but who knows, they might surprise us by reworking the track using fresh sounds.

Written by Louis Delacour of Delacour Agency