ATB's '9 PM' Marks 28 Years Since UK Chart History

ATB's "9 PM" was released in October 1998, introducing André Tanneberger to a much wider audience through a melody that became instantly recognisable. By the following summer, the track had become the first trance record to reach No. 1 on the UK Singles Chart, spending two weeks at the top and becoming the country's best-selling song of summer 1999.

An Unplanned Studio Session

The track began without any expectation of becoming a hit. André Tanneberger has recalled working on the melody while showing someone around his studio before they were supposed to go to the cinema. A guitar-style sound caught his attention, and he became increasingly absorbed in the idea until the evening plans were forgotten. When he eventually saved the project, the clock read around 9 PM, giving the track its name.

That same studio session produced the pitch-bent guitar-style lead that listeners would immediately associate with the track. ATB returned to the project the following day, developed the production further and later added the vocal that became "Till I Come."

Chart Success and Mainstream Breakthrough

Several months after its original release, 9 PM found its biggest commercial audience during the summer of 1999. The track spent two weeks at the top of the UK Singles Chart, remained inside the Top 10 for six weeks and became the country's best-selling song of that summer. By the end of the year, it ranked among the UK's biggest-selling singles, placing a trance record alongside some of the period's biggest mainstream releases.

Its timing made that achievement even more important for the genre. Trance was already growing across clubs and festivals throughout Europe, but records from the scene rarely achieved that level of mainstream chart success. 9 PM helped bring the melodic side of trance onto radio, television and national charts at a time when electronic dance music was becoming increasingly visible outside club culture.

Beyond the Breakthrough

The impact of 9 PM continued with ATB's debut album Movin' Melodies in 1999, which also included "Don't Stop!" Later releases including "The Fields of Love" and "Let U Go" showed that his career would extend far beyond one breakthrough single.

More than two decades later, the melody returned through "Your Love (9PM)" with Topic and A7S in 2021. The collaboration brought one of ATB's most familiar musical ideas into a different period of dance music and became an international success of its own.

Twenty-eight years on, 9 PM remains one of the tracks most closely associated with ATB and the late-1990s rise of trance.