World-famous DJ from the Netherlands, often abbreviated as
AvB. Repeatedly voted #1 DJ in the world. Hosts the weekly radio show "
A State of Trance" (
ASOT) on DI.FM, which is considered to be (one of) the most important radio shows of the trance music scene.
Commonly considered to be a trance DJ, while this was true in the past, it isn't any more today. In his sets, both online and on live events, he plays all kinds of electronic music, house and
progressive house, techno and techtrance, electro and electrotrance (if there is such a thing), and the modern minimal style "trance".
The biggest criticism however comes from the fact that he's pushing the worldwide trance scene towards
poppish vocal trance. This is reflected by any and all of his own recent productions, which aren't
trancy at all, but are just a variant of pop music with a house beat. Unfortunately most people still consider this to be trance, just due to the fact that it has AvB written on it and they think he is the "god" of trance, and thus he is largely responsible for trance music losing its identity and becoming a sub-genre of pop music.
Common nicknames for his weekly radio show include ASOC,
ASOP, ASOB (A State of Crap, Pop and Bitching respectively, the latter due to the massive amount of bitching going on in the DI.FM forums during his shows, from the many trance listeners being unhappy with the show) and also different interpretations of ASOT (such as A State of Trash).
A: Wow, Armin van Buuren played in our local club yesterday, that was the best
trance night ever!
B:
You idiot, that was mostly
vocal pop house, not trance.