This week in dance music: Illenium scored his fourth No. 1 on the Top Dance Albums with his latest LP Odyssey. The album comes ahead of his Sphere residency of the same name that begins in early March.
“I can’t wait,” the artist recently told Billboard of this residency. “It’s getting to the point where I am personally blown away by being there and looking and watching. I cannot f–king wait to see fans in it. Right now I’m just in an empty venue with a huge smile on my face. Every run-through I’m like, “Wow, this is gonna be f–king insane.”
Meanwhile, HAVEN.’s “I Run,” featuring Kaitlin Aragon, jumped 4-1 on this week’s Dance/Mix Show Airplay chart, earning each their its first career Billboard No. 1. As reported by Billboard, this path to No. 1 was marked by controversy, as “an earlier version of the song, released in October without Aragon, went viral on TikTok and quickly surged in streams, but drew scrutiny over its use of AI-assisted vocal processing.” These uncredited vocals drew similarities to British singer Jorja Smith, “prompting speculation that the recording was an unauthorized deepfake. Following complaints and multiple takedown notices, the song was removed from streaming platforms and withheld from appearing on Billboard’s charts amid the active dispute.” The current version of “I Run,” features newly recorded vocals from Aragon.
And Kygo’s Palm Tree Crew inked a deal with the city of West Palm Beach, Florida to bring its Palm Tree Festival back to the city for the next four years. This deal follows record-setting turnout at the debut West Palm Beach edition of the fest last weekend.
And finally, as always, these are the best new dance tracks of the week.
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deadmau5 feat. Stevie Appleton, “Science”
“Steve sent the vocal through, thought it was neat so I made a track with it,” deadmau5 says in a statement about his first release of the year, and while his take here is straightforward, the nearly 10-minute track is dually sumptuous. While Appleton’s vocals speak of romance as he sings about “the science of my love for you,” deadmau5’s ever pristine production glistens, as the producer builds a track that pulses and beats like the heart itself. “Science” is out on mau5trap.
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horsegiirL, “only the best”
How can an artist be so emotive and also be a horse? Berlin’s horsegiirL continues to perplex and delight with her latest, “Only the Best,” a float-y, bumping, multi-layered joyride that sounds like love and lust personified, with the flute solo bringing the whole thing to another level. Naturally, the track dropped on day one of the year of the horse, and opens up a conceptual world the artist will continue unfurling throughout 2026, with a statement about the project calling it “a mythic, communal space where dance music becomes a path back to instinct, connection, and collective release.” The track is out on horsegiirL/RCA Records.
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Armand Van Helden, Mark Knight & D. Ramirez, “You”
The output from this house power trio is as deliriously groovy as you’d hope and expect, with “You” capturing all the bouncy, funky, swoon-y tendencies that have long defined Van Helden’s catalog, while putting forth the precision and style that have always been signatures of Knight and his Toolroom label. British house stalwart D. Ramirez is a secret weapon here, bringing the cut to positively blissful peaks. “You” is out on Toolroom Records.
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Kygo, Gryffin & Khalid, “Save My Love”
Kygo links with Gryffin and Khalid for “Save My Love,” a characteristically bright anthem that manages to make heartbreak sound quite pretty. The song reunites Kygo and Gryffin for the first time since their 2022 collaborative single “Woke Up In Love,” and comes days after Kygo wiped his Instagram and threw up billboards in high-vis spots across the U.S. including Times Square and Miami’s Kaseya Center, both moves that give “big things coming” vibes.
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Odd Mob feat. Lizzy Land, “Never Alone”
Australian producer Odd Mob puts forth one of the coolest tracks of his career thus far with “Never Alone,” a collaboration with vocalist Lizzy Land. Melding trance, progressive and tech house, the song is a haunting, resonant cut that the artist himself says is “as an ode to the loved ones that we’ve lost and how their memory serves as an inspiration. It touches on the comfort that we feel when positive experiences come our way after we lose somebody and that feeling that they are looking out for us. It’s my most personal track to date and aims to give you that melancholy yet uplifting feeling similar to when good things happen after bad events.” The track is out on Experts Only.
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