dance

Alan Walker

2 festivals played ↓

Norwegian producer who turned the hooded-silhouette persona and the melodic drop of 'Faded' into a global template for streaming-era electronic pop.

Alan Walker was born Alan Olav Walker in 1997 in Northampton, England, to a British father who worked as a baker and a Norwegian mother employed in elderly care. The family moved to Bergen, Norway, when he was two, and he grew up in the Fana district, attending Christian schools before deciding, as a teenager, to try music instead of following his parents into other trades.

He taught himself production from online tutorials, working under the name DJ Walkzz before releasing music under his own. At seventeen he put out the instrumental "Fade" through the NoCopyrightSounds channel; reworked with vocals as "Faded", it reached the US charts and was certified multi-platinum, giving him his breakthrough.

His music leans on clean synth leads, simple piano-derived motifs and vocal hooks, sitting between progressive house and pop, usually built around guest singers rather than his own voice.

Singles such as "Alone", "Sing Me to Sleep", "Darkside" and "On My Way" followed the same formula, and his catalogue expanded into full albums, including Different World, World of Walker, Walkerverse Pt. I & II, Walkerworld and, in 2025, Walkerworld 2.0, alongside a collaboration with Steve Aoki titled Quantum Beats.

He has won three MTV Europe Music Awards and two Spellemannprisen, and has notched seven number-one singles on Norway's VG-lista chart. On stage and in videos he appears masked, a persona built around anonymity, and his audience is known collectively as Walkers.

Read more

dance