Martin Garrix Set to Release ‘Debut’ Album, 13 Years in the Making

Sepang. Singapore. Los Angeles. In just 10 days, Martin Garrix has hurtled through all three at a cadence for which the Dutch DJ and producer is known. Garrix has toured internationally since he was 16. Now 30, he’s spent nearly half his life on the road or somewhere between stops.

A schedule this demanding breeds battle-tested travel and performance acumen. How to beat jet lag in its own ring. Where to securely stash the USB flash drives (containing his music library) when living out of a suitcase. How to pace a 60-minute set at one of the world’s biggest and most consequential dance music festivals.

None of that expertise renders Garrix immune to a peculiar rite of passage at 30: “I realize I don’t know shit,” he tells Rolling Stone . “And that’s a very incredible feeling. There’s so much I can still grow into, so much I can still learn.”

Some of it will unfold in the form of vocal lessons on the heels of tour dates in Mexico City, with Amsterdam on the horizon. More than a decade into his career, he’s increasingly interested in who Martin Garrix might be beyond the DJ booth. Over the past year, and especially these days, much of that curiosity is being distilled into a project years in the making: his debut album, MARTY . The 14-track LP, named after his first DJ alias, lands March 5, 2027, via Interscope Records and his own label, STMPD RCRDS.

“Debut album” forces a pause. Sentio was marketed as such in 2022, but Garrix, who calls it a “club album,” sees no contradiction. “[ MARTY ] feels like the first pop album — pop-dance, basically,” he clarifies.

There’s a clear logic to positioning it as his definitive debut. Identity has a lot to do with that.

The album is both autobiographical and epochal by design. With each song representing a different chapter of his life, MARTY offers an unprecedentedly intimate look inside one of dance music’s most successful and influential minds. Its arc — from his birth on the lead single “Catharina,” written about his mother, through the afterlife and rebirth — sheds light on a question that existing context about him leaves largely unanswered: Who has the now-adult wunderkind, who broke out with “Animals” in 2013, become? Editor’s picks The 250 Greatest Albums of the 21st Century So Far The 100 Best TV Episodes of All Time The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century

While more collaborators will be announced, the handful confirmed so far should be enough to make even the uninitiated listen for the answer: Madonna (“Bizarre”), U2 (“Fireflies”), Ed Sheeran (“Rewind Repeat It,” made more than a decade ago), and AITANA on Garrix’s first, as-yet-untitled song in Spanish. (“Bizarre” also appeared on the Queen of Pop’s Confessions II .)

“I got to work with some incredible, legendary artists, so it’s very surreal,” Garrix says of the features on MARTY , which also marks his first team-up with a K-pop group. “Even when Madonna released her album, I was just like, ‘How is my name on hers?’”

It doesn’t get any more nonpareil than Madonna, but Garrix is no stranger to collisions with pop, rock, and R&B’s upper echelon.