System F

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

System F is an alias of the Dutch DJ and producer Ferry Corsten, who was born in Rotterdam in 1973. As a teenager he played at school parties and bought his first keyboard with money from washing cars. He made his first records in the 1990s: first hardcore gabber, then club house and trance. He worked under many names, including Moonman, Pulp Victim and Gouryella, and in 1997 founded the dance label Tsunami with Robert Smit.

Music and breakthrough

As System F, Corsten released Out of the Blue in February 1999. The track had been lying around in the clubs as a promo for months and became a worldwide trance hit. The album Out of the Blue, with, among others, Soul on Soul with Marc Almond, followed in 2000. It was the strongest example of Corsten's trance sound: a long-built melody over fast, tight beats, with synthesizers that seem to climb a step higher each time. Together came out later, in 2003. His last System F single, Exhale, he made with Armin van Buuren.

Influence

Corsten belongs, together with Tiësto and Armin van Buuren, to the Dutch DJs who made dance music known worldwide. That a Rotterdam producer could make such records in a room in his parents' house shows how strongly Dutch dance grew around the turn of the century.

Listening

• 
  Out of the Blue · System F, 1999
  Apple Music ↗

Discography

Studio albums

• 2000Out of the Blue
• 2003Together

See also

• Dutch trance