The Trance/Eurobeat Renaissance: Speed and Euphoria Return to 2020s Dance Floors
In recent years, if you have been following techno, you may have heard big melodies reminiscent of classic trance and Eurodance emerging between hard, minimal beats—bright chords, vocals, and an almost embarrassingly direct sense of euphoria.
This is not a simple 1990s revival. Hard techno, hard house, Eurodance, makina, happy hardcore, and Y2K pop are being re-edited within today’s fast-paced club music. Young DJs are using sounds once dismissed as “commercial” or “cheesy” as fresh weapons instead.
In Japanese, “Eurobeat” often refers to SUPER EUROBEAT and para-para culture. What is happening in European clubs today, however, is not a straightforward revival of that sound, but a broader reassessment of fast European dance music encompassing Eurodance, Hi-NRG, hard house, trance, and makina. This article approaches that larger current as the “trance/Eurobeat renaissance.”
Why trance and Euro sounds now?
The first reason is the overall acceleration of techno. As BPMs rise, the boundaries between hard house, hard trance, and makina naturally blur. Place euphoric arpeggios or vocals over a powerful kick, and you create peak-time moments where people can share emotion—something very different from impersonal techno.
Second, a generation has emerged that sees Y2K culture not as a lived memory, but as an archive waiting to be uncovered. Old synth sounds, cheap yet enormous breakdowns, sportswear, and neon colors are being embraced not only ironically, but as sources of genuine pleasure.
Third, Boiler Room and festival videos have carried the energy of clubs around the world. Many of the videos below have drawn hundreds of thousands or millions of views. The feeling of everyone singing, bouncing, and smiling together—something that is hard to convey through an audio track alone—is at the heart of this renaissance.
10 sets that reveal the current wave
1. Funk Tribu | Boiler Room: Ghent
If you want to understand this movement through a single set, start with Funk Tribu. Moving rapidly across hard trance, Eurodance, and techno, he boldly inserts classic hooks. Its roughly 5.3 million views show that this sound is more than a niche nostalgic taste. The moment KI/KI’s remix of Felix’s “Don't You Want Me” comes on is also a vivid symbol of the connection between past and present.
2. Marlon Hoffstadt | Boiler Room: Melbourne
Calling himself “DJ Daddy Trance,” Marlon Hoffstadt has taken the trance revival from underground darkness to the center of the celebration. He does not shy away from huge melodies, accessible vocals, or the bounce of hard house. With roughly 2.7 million views, this set presents a new image of rave culture: not holding back to look cool, but letting emotion explode alongside the crowd.
3. Marlon Hoffstadt @ WHP Manchester 2025
This set shows how his sound expanded into large-scale venues after Boiler Room. Even in the vast space of Manchester’s Warehouse Project, trance-rooted breakdowns and anthem-sized moments still work. It makes clear that the revival is not a fleeting online meme, but a movement capable of filling real events.
4. DJ HEARTSTRING | Boiler Room: Melbourne
DJ HEARTSTRING calls their sound “Trance Dance Music,” connecting the drive of hard house with Eurodance-style sentimentality. In this video, with roughly 1.05 million views, sweet vocals and bright chords become not a weakness of fast beats, but their greatest strength. In 2025, “Back To My Love,” which drew attention through this set, received an official release—another example of the contemporary cycle in which live footage can turn a track into a hit.
5. KI/KI | Boiler Room Festival Amsterdam: SPIELRAUM
KI/KI is a leading figure in bringing 1990s trance and acid into the tense atmosphere of contemporary techno. With roughly 1.85 million views, this set reminds us that the trance revival is not simply about becoming more pop-oriented; it has also recovered the hypnotic power of long buildups and repetition. Brightness and darkness, ecstasy and austerity coexist.
6. MALUGI | Boiler Room: Ghent
MALUGI’s set moves through hard house, Eurodance, bouncy techno, and pop references in quick succession. Roughly 1.43 million views. Prioritizing how the floor responds in the moment over genre purity, this selection captures the light-footed spirit of the current renaissance.
7. DJ Gigola | Boiler Room Berlin: Live From Earth
DJ Gigola is an important figure who has brought the sensibilities of trance, Eurodance, hip-hop, and pop into Berlin’s club context. With roughly 1.64 million views, this set shows that the boundary between “serious techno” and “fun pop” has already collapsed. It is also worth noting how she uses Y2K textures not as fashion, but as part of her DJ vocabulary.
8. sim0ne | Boiler Room: Melbourne
Boiler Room itself described this as a “euphoric set.” Roughly 720,000 views. It puts soaring chords, vocals, and speed front and center without sacrificing the force of contemporary low end. A packed dance floor vividly overturns the old judgment that “euphoria is frivolous.”
9. horsegiirL | Boiler Room CDMX
Wearing a horse mask, horsegiirL moves across Eurodance, hardstyle, and pop performance. Released in 2025, the video has roughly 1.13 million views. Built around character, internet-native humor, and music alike, it shows that this revival is a cultural phenomenon involving anonymity, avatars, and camp presentation—not sound alone.
10. TDJ — SPF INFINI 3
TDJ’s “SPF INFINI” series is an important project that brings trance, Eurodance, hyperpop, and internet video culture together in a single long-form work. It is closer to a video piece depicting an imagined summer, a lost future, and dreams in the social-media age than to a DJ set. It shows how the renaissance has expanded beyond functional club music into an expression that reconstructs post-Y2K memory.
Music unafraid of being “cheesy”
What these artists share is a refusal to hide huge melodies, sentimental vocals, and overt buildups. Today’s DJs are bringing back to the dance floor what some strands of techno have stripped away since the 2000s.
But what has returned is not merely the style of a particular genre. It is the act of fully investing emotionally in music; singing the same hook with strangers; sincerely enjoying sounds that are a little over-the-top.
The reassessment of makina belongs to the same current. In Spain, Pastis & Buenri, active since the 1990s, are being rediscovered by younger generations at Primavera Sound and venues in Ibiza. Music once associated with drugs and disorder is being reinterpreted, through generational change, as a culture of pure speed and joy.
Techno in the latter half of the 2020s is not moving only toward darkness and hardness. Within it, trance ecstasy, Eurodance accessibility, hard house’s springy lift, and makina’s furious speed are converging. What sounds futuristic may in fact be emotion left behind in the past—watch these 10 videos in succession and that becomes clear.