Sandstorm

In September and October 1999, the Finnish DJ Darude began working with producer Jaakko "JS16" Salovaara, best known for his work with the Bomfunk MC's. "Sandstorm" was the first product of that collaboration, finished after roughly a week in Salovaara's studio. The instrumental took its name from an odd source: the Roland JP-8080 synthesizer used on the track displays the text "sand storm" when it starts up. JS16 liked what he heard enough to sign Darude as the first artist on his new label, 16 Inch Records.

Before that, Toni-Ville Henrik Virtanen, as Darude is named offstage, had been experimenting with trance and uploading pieces to the website MP3.com, where a following was slowly forming. He also posted the full-length demo of "Sandstorm" there, and that exposure drew worldwide interest to the track. In 2000 he reported on his MP3.com artist page that he had removed the full-length tracks at the request of his record company.

The single came out in Finland on 26 October 1999 and appeared worldwide through 2000 as the lead single from the debut album Before the Storm. It topped the charts in Canada and Norway, sold over a million copies in the United States, and eventually reached two million sales worldwide. The music video, directed by Juuso Syrjä and shot around Helsinki, became the first Finnish video shown on MTV in the US.