“It was three weeks before the release, and he said: ‘I know it will be number one’”: How ATB accidentally came up with the hook for the chart-topping 9PM (Till I Come) while showing off his studio to impress a date

Released in 1999, German producer and DJ André Tanneberger’s 9PM (Till I Come) is a bona fide club classic, featuring one of the most recognisable hooks in dance music’s history. But did you know that this iconic lead line was improvised not in the hopes of creating a chart-topping trance anthem, but to impress a date that had swung by the studio for a tour?

The artist better known as ATB revealed the origins of the track’s infectious hook in a recent interview with DJ Mag, confessing that the melody line – a pitch-bent flourish of sampled guitar, likely produced by a Roland JV-1080 – was casually improvised while he was showing off his music production set-up to a female companion.