History

Spinnin' Records is the best-known label in the electronic and EDM music industry. It was founded in 1999 in the Netherlands by two Dutchmen: Eelko van Kooten, son of the radio DJ and businessman Willem van Kooten, and Roger de Graaf, a former employee of the specialist dance retailer Rhythm Import.

They started out pressing vinyl for artists. Today the label works almost entirely in digital releases, spread across a long list of its own imprints and artist-run sub-labels.

Warner Music Group bought the company in September 2017. The price was reported at around $100 million, though Warner never confirmed it. Eelko van Kooten left the company after the deal, while Roger de Graaf stayed on to run it. De Graaf stepped down as co-president in November 2024, about 25 years after he co-founded the label. In March 2025 his fellow co-president Ewout Swart also left, and Niels Walboomers, Warner's head of recorded music in the Benelux, took over the label.

Sub-labels

Spinnin' runs two kinds of sub-labels: its own imprints, and "vanity" labels run by a single artist under the Spinnin' umbrella.

Spinnin's own imprints:

Source
Spinnin' Compilations
Spinnin' Create (formerly Spinnin' Copyright Free Music)
Spinnin' Deep
Spinnin' NEXT
Spinnin' Premium
Spinnin' Records Asia
Spinnin' Records Germany (launched in 2026)
Spinnin' Talent Pool
SPRS

Artist-run labels:

Brine Records (Pickle)
Congo Records (Lincoln Jesser)
Controversia (Alok)
Dharma Worldwide (KSHMR)
Doorn Records (Sander van Doorn)
Heartfeldt Records (Sam Feldt)
Hysteria (Bingo Players)
Kryteria Records (Kryder)
Maxximize Records (Blasterjaxx)
Mentalo Music (Robin Schulz)
Musical Freedom (Tiësto), with its own sub-label Aftr:Hrs
Night Service Only (Cid)
OneHundred (Hedegaard)
Oz Records (Ummet Ozcan)
Sink or Swim (Guz)
Sinphony (Timmy Trumpet)
Tonco Tone (Chocolate Puma)

Some well-known labels started under Spinnin' and later moved on. Afrojack's Wall Recordings went to Universal Music Group and is now independent, and Oliver Heldens' Heldeep Records and Nicky Romero's Protocol Recordings are independent too.

Milestones & genres

1999 - 2004: Trance & Euro

No-brainer, this is the era of trance and Eurodance. High BPMs, strange clothes and boundless fun in the clubs. As Spinnin' Records started with vinyl, they distributed more than 240 records between 1999 and the end of 2004, mainly 12" vinyl. This was also the CD era, so they released many CDs too.

Their first release was a package of remixes of The Player by First Choice. It came out under the catalogue number SP001 as a 12" record (33 ⅓ RPM), with remixes by Olav Basoski (A1), Tom De Neef (A2), Scumfrog (B1), Inge (B2) and Mousse T. & Boris Dlugosch (B3).

2005 - 2010: Classics of the '00s

This is when Spinnin' Records became an international label. They got active on YouTube early, which helped them grow beyond the Netherlands and sell digital releases. That channel became one of the biggest music channels in the world: Spinnin' announced 30 million YouTube subscribers at IMS Ibiza in April 2023, and the channel is above 32 million today.

This period produced many famous names, including Inna, one of the top EDM vocalists of that time, Uniting Nations, Hardwell, Ummet Ozcan, R3HAB, Firebeatz and Afrojack. And last but not least, Stereo Love by Edward Maya and Vika Jigulina, a huge hit whose video has passed hundreds of millions of views on YouTube.

2011 - 2015: The center of EDM

I feel I don't have to say it: Spinnin' became the center of EDM in this period. Its artists played the biggest festivals, like Ultra, Tomorrowland, Sziget Festival, Amsterdam Dance Event and Creamfields. Music streaming was also taking off at the same time, on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer and many more.

If I learned one thing from Spinnin', it is how they introduced new talent: they gave a newcomer's tracks to well-known DJs to play in their sets, and if the crowd liked a track, they released it.

The era covered many genres, but mostly big room, progressive, future and electro house. If you want to know more about one of them, read our guide on what progressive house is.

Artists from this era:

Martin Garrix
Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike
DVBBS & Borgeous
KSHMR
R3HAB
Afrojack
Tiësto
Showtek
MOGUAI
Martin Solveig
Firebeatz
New World Sound & Thomas Newson
Timmy Trumpet
Blasterjaxx
Nicky Romero
Oliver Heldens

Martin Garrix's "Animals" came out on Spinnin' in 2013. Garrix left the label in 2015 and now releases on his own label, STMPD RCRDS, which is also where the official video lives today.

2016 - 2019: A top-flag label

From here on, Spinnin' is one of the largest and best-known dance labels in the world. Many famous names from the previous era started their own labels in these years, some as sub-labels under Spinnin' and many as fully independent labels.

Deep house was everywhere in 2015 and 2016, and a wave of small labels and YouTube channels grew on it and on bass-heavy "car music", the sound that later turned into slap house. Spinnin' got some serious competition online, and this was also when Warner Music Group bought it in 2017.

Big room slowly faded on the label, with exceptions like Blasterjaxx from the previous era. Many new artists got signed through the Talent Pool, the label's open platform for demos and remix contests.

If I had to name two places where electronic music is really big, they would be the Netherlands and Asia. Spinnin' knew it too, and in 2019 they launched a new sub-label, Spinnin' Records Asia, to focus on that market.

2020 - 2023: The slap house years

The pandemic years helped many new artists break through. Maybe it was TikTok, maybe it was the "dark time" of lockdowns, but slap house became popular all around the world. Big room stayed alive on Maxximize Records, Blasterjaxx's label.

Alok, the Brazilian DJ and producer, launched Controversia as a Spinnin' sub-label in 2019, and it became a home for slap house, with new releases almost every week.

Artists from this era:

Alok
Yves V
Joe Stone & Camden Cox
Deepend
Imanbek
Ilkay Sencan
Triplo Max
Harrison
New World Sound
KSHMR
Robin Schulz
Ofenbach & Quarterhead

2024 - today: New leadership, deeper sounds

The last few years changed Spinnin' more than any period since the Warner deal:

New home and new bosses. In October 2023 the label moved its headquarters from Hilversum to Amsterdam, next to the other Warner Music Benelux teams. Roger de Graaf stepped down in November 2024 and Ewout Swart in March 2025, and Niels Walboomers took charge. In October 2025 Warner combined its Benelux business, Spinnin' included, with Germany, Switzerland and Austria under the name Warner Music Central Europe.
Spinnin' Deep goes live. The house imprint held its first own event at Amsterdam Dance Event 2025, and followed it with an official showcase at IMS Ibiza in April 2026.
Spinnin' Records Germany. Launched on 10 April 2026 for artists from Germany, Austria and Switzerland, with a Berlin team. Its first single was "Awake Tonight" by Afrojack, David Guetta and Sia.

Twenty-seven years after its first vinyl, Spinnin' is still a label that both big names and newcomers want to release on.

Make your own EDM track

Do you want to join the electronic music industry yourself? Start with our guides:

The Story Behind Spinnin' Records: Then and Now