The first seconds that tell a crowd something huge is coming
Ask people about their favorite moment in a dance track and most will name a drop. But the drop only works because of what comes before it. A great intro sets the stakes. It tells the crowd what kind of night it’s going to be, and sometimes it’s the most memorable part of the whole record.
The intros on this list work in very different ways. Some take minutes to unfold. Some grab you with a single voice. One of them uses NASA audio from the last crewed mission to the Moon. What they share is the feeling that the room changes the moment they start.
Why intros matter more than you think
In electronic music, the intro has a practical job before it has an artistic one. DJs need a section at the start of a track with a steady beat and not much else, so they can blend it smoothly with the record that’s already playing. That’s why so many club tracks open with drums alone.
The tracks below go further. Their intros are written to be heard, not just mixed. One thing to know before you listen: many of these intros only exist in full on the album or extended version. Radio edits often cut them down or remove them entirely, so if a track on this list seems to start abruptly, look for the original mix.
1. Faithless – “Insomnia” (1995)
Faithless were an unusual trio: producer Rollo, classically trained DJ and composer Sister Bliss, and Maxi Jazz, a rapper and poet who delivered his lyrics in a calm, almost meditative voice. “Insomnia” brought those three sides together, and its intro is where you hear the tension between them.
The track opens with chimes, a sound that made it instantly recognizable on dance floors around New Year’s Eve 1995, when it first came out. Then it holds back. Maxi Jazz describes a sleepless night in a low, steady voice while the music simmers underneath. The famous riff, a plucked string sound the band had first developed on their earlier single “Salva Mea,” is withheld until the tension is almost unbearable.
That patience is the point. “Insomnia” works on tension and release rather than an instant hit, so when the riff finally arrives, it feels like the night breaking open. The sound was so distinctive that other producers copied it, and for a while critics talked about a short-lived “pizzicato house” style.
“Insomnia” first reached No. 17 in the UK. After Pete Tong championed it, a re-release took it to No. 3, and it went on to chart in 17 countries and sell more than 800,000 copies in the UK. Maxi Jazz died in 2022, and his opening words remain one of the most recognizable voices in dance music.
Listen for: how long the track makes you wait for the riff, and how Maxi Jazz’s calm delivery makes the wait more intense, not less.
2. Underworld – “Born Slippy .NUXX” (1996)
“Born Slippy .NUXX” wasn’t meant to be a hit. It began as a B-side, and it only became one of the defining records of the decade after Danny Boyle used it in Trainspotting.
Its intro is built on pulsing, hypnotic synth chords and a kick drum that seem to push forward without ever fully settling. Each bar adds a little more pressure. When Karl Hyde’s vocal finally arrives, it isn’t a chorus but a stream of fragmented images from a long, chaotic night out, with the famous repeated “lager, lager, lager.”
Crowds have treated that line as a drinking chant for decades. Hyde has suggested the lyrics came from a much darker place, his own drinking, which gives the intro’s restless, building pressure a different meaning once you know it.
Listen for: the way the synth chords seem to swell and pull back like breathing, building a sense of unease long before the beat fully takes over.
Knife Party – “Internet Friends” (2011)
Knife Party began as a side project for Rob Swire and Gareth McGrillen, two members of the drum & bass band Pendulum, and “Internet Friends” was their very first release. It came out in December 2011 as the lead single of their debut EP, 100% No Modern Talking, initially as a free download.
The intro is what made it famous. It opens with a buzzing sound that, as UKF put it, could easily be mistaken for your phone vibrating, followed by a sampled voice delivering one of the most quoted lines in 2010s dance music: “You blocked me on Facebook, and now you’re going to die”. Then the track explodes into heavy electro house and dubstep.
That intro works because it’s funny and menacing at the same time. In 2011, social media was becoming part of everyday life, and the idea of an online snub turning into a horror movie threat felt both absurd and strangely relatable. UKF called it one of the most hilarious and memorable intros in years. It gave the track an identity before a single bass note had played, and crowds learned to shout the line back at the DJ.
Even without much radio support, “Internet Friends” reached No. 9 on the UK Dance Chart and charted in the UK Top 100 despite being free to download. It later appeared in The Walking Dead and became one of the signature tracks of the early-2010s bass music boom.
Listen for: the timing. The sample lands in near silence, giving the line room to sink in, and the drop that follows feels like the threat being carried out.
Fatboy Slim – “Right Here, Right Now” (1999)
Norman Cook, better known as Fatboy Slim, built “Right Here, Right Now” from two borrowed moments. The first is a dramatic string passage from “Ashes, the Rain & I”, a 1970 song by the American rock band James Gang. The second is a line spoken by Angela Bassett in the 1995 sci-fi film Strange Days: the title itself.
Neither sample was a dance record, and that’s what makes the intro so effective. The strings bring a sense of drama, almost like a film score, while the repeated “right here, right now” works like a countdown that refuses to end. By the time the beat fully arrives, the anticipation has been building for so long that the release feels huge.
The track reached No. 2 in the UK, and Mixmag readers later voted it the 10th-greatest dance record of all time. Its intro has since opened TV shows and film trailers, and Cook even reworked it in 2019 with Greta Thunberg’s speech to the UN, proof of how well the phrase captures a sense of urgency.
Listen for: how the strings and the voice never change, yet the tension keeps growing, simply because the track keeps you waiting.
5. Justice – “Genesis” (2007)
When French duo Justice released their debut album † (also known as Cross) in 2007, they placed “Genesis” first for a reason. It opens with blaring, fanfare-like horns over a heavy, funky groove, more like the opening credits of a film than the start of a dance record.
Justice made “Genesis” the start of their live shows, where Gaspard Augé and Xavier de Rosnay performed between two walls of speakers, with a glowing cross in front of them. In that setting, the intro worked as an announcement: the show has begun.
The track also captures what made Justice stand out in the mid-2000s. Their sound mixed distorted electro, rock attitude and grand, almost theatrical drama, and “Genesis” puts all of that into its first few seconds.
Listen for: the contrast between the regal horns and the dirty, swaggering groove underneath them.
Porter Robinson – “Language” (2012)
By 2012, Porter Robinson was known for “Spitfire” and other aggressive, fast-switching complextro tracks. “Language” went in the opposite direction. Its intro is delicate and trance-like, with soft synths and the soaring voice of singer Heather Bright, who isn’t credited on the track.
Instead of hitting hard, the intro builds slowly toward lush chords, a thumping kick and a euphoric release. Robinson has said he was surprised that fans accepted such a change of direction. They did more than accept it: “Language” reached No. 9 in the UK, and Billboard later named it the best track in his discography.
In hindsight, its intro marks the moment Robinson began moving toward the emotional, melodic sound that defined his later albums.
Listen for: how the vocal floats over the music before the beat arrives, giving the track a sense of space that’s rare in festival EDM of that era.
8. Swedish House Mafia – “Greyhound” (2012)
“Greyhound” was originally created for an Absolut Vodka campaign themed around greyhound racing, and you can hear that idea in its structure. The intro is cinematic, with huge, stacked synth chords that grow bigger and bigger, like a movie trailer or the moment before a race starts.
Swedish House Mafia have used it to open their concerts, and in a stadium, the build turns the start of the show into an event. When the drop finally arrives, its galloping rhythm makes it feel like the whole crowd is being pulled forward at once.
“Greyhound” came out at the height of the EDM boom, when Axwell, Steve Angello and Sebastian Ingrosso were playing some of the biggest shows electronic music had ever seen. Its intro captures that scale better than almost any track of the era.
Listen for: how the chords keep stacking without releasing, so the tension feels physical by the time the drop hits.
9. Daft Punk – “Contact” (2013)
“Contact” closes Daft Punk’s final studio album, Random Access Memories, and its intro is one of the most unusual in electronic music.
It opens with a sample from “We Ride Tonight” by the Australian band The Sherbs, which Thomas Bangalter and DJ Falcon had played years earlier in a DJ set as the duo Together. Then comes real NASA audio from Apollo 17: astronaut Eugene Cernan describing a bright, flashing object outside his capsule window, later believed to be a discarded piece of rocket.
Daft Punk chose that recording on purpose. They felt the track needed something like a countdown, and they wanted Cernan specifically, because he was the last person to leave the surface of the Moon. Placing his voice at the end of their album gave it a meaning that goes beyond music.
From there, the track builds into a roaring wall of orchestral riffs, modular synthesizers, live bass and drums. Its ending was so loud that, according to DJ Falcon, it blew out the studio speakers. NME described it as sounding “not unlike a huge pyramid blasting off into space,” a nod to the giant pyramid stage of Daft Punk’s live shows.
Listen for: the moment Cernan’s calm, crackling voice gives way to the music, as if the track is lifting off.
10. Eric Prydz – “Opus” (2016)
“Opus” is the title track of Eric Prydz’s 2016 album, and it may be the most patient build in modern dance music. It begins with a single, simple arpeggio, a short pattern of notes repeating over and over.
That arpeggio barely changes over the track’s nine minutes. Everything around it does. Layers join one by one, the sound grows brighter and fuller, and the energy keeps rising without ever quite breaking. In practice, the intro is the track: the whole piece is a build toward one release.
That’s why “Opus” became one of the most loved closing tracks in electronic music. In a club or at a festival, the long build gives thousands of people time to realize what’s happening, and when the release finally comes, the reaction is enormous.
Listen for: how many new layers appear without the main pattern ever changing. It’s a lesson in how much tension a producer can create from one idea.
Fred again.. & The Blessed Madonna – “Marea (We’ve Lost Dancing)” (2021)
The newest intro on this list is also the most personal. Fred again.. built “Marea” around a conversation with The Blessed Madonna, the American DJ and producer whose real name is Marea Stamper, which gave the track its title. It was the first time she had appeared as a vocalist on a record.
The two had met years earlier in Palestine, and the track came out in early 2021, when clubs around the world had been closed for almost a year because of the pandemic. Her voice, reflecting on the loss of dancing, opens the track before warm house chords and a steady beat rise around her words.
That’s what makes the intro so powerful. It doesn’t sound like a performance; it sounds like a real person talking, saying out loud what many people in the dance music world were feeling. When the music swells, it feels like a promise that the dance floor would come back.
“Marea” helped make Fred again.. one of the defining names in electronic music in the 2020s, and its approach, turning everyday voices and moments into club music, became one of the most influential ideas of the decade.
Listen for: how the beat seems to grow out of her voice rather than replace it, so the track feels like a conversation set to music.
What makes an EDM intro epic?
Look at these ten intros side by side, and three approaches stand out.
The slow burn. “Insomnia,” “Born Slippy .NUXX” and “Opus” take their time. They build tension gradually and make the listener wait, so the release feels earned.
The perfect sample. “Block Rockin’ Beats,” “Right Here, Right Now” and “Contact” are built around a single borrowed voice: a rapper’s hype line, an actor’s spoken words, an astronaut’s radio call. Each one gives the track an identity before the music has fully started.
The emotional or cinematic opening. “Genesis,” “Greyhound,” “Language” and “Marea” open like the first scene of a story, whether through a film-style fanfare, a soaring vocal or a single honest voice.
Whichever approach a producer takes, a great intro does the same job: it makes the listener feel that something is about to happen, and then it makes good on that promise.
Which EDM intro gives you chills every time? Tell us in the comments, and if we missed one, we’d love to hear it.
