Do we like them?Do we like Armin van Buuren?
Our score: 7 out of 10. A clean record and some real good works, held back from the top only because the evidence is mostly trade-press reports and I couldn't open the articles.
Armin van Buuren is the Dutch trance DJ whose weekly radio show, A State of Trance, has grown into a global brand. He's still releasing music this year, including a track called Starbound with ASTRON4UT on his own Armind label. Honestly, he's a bloke who's been at it for decades and mostly just keeps making trance.
The latest thing is the fun one. In September he turned up in drag as the Mystery Queen on Make Up Your Mind, a Dutch show where celebrities are transformed into drag characters. DJ Mag reported that he explained the message of self-acceptance as the reason he took part, and that he got a standing ovation when his name was revealed.
On the harm check, the searches found nothing nasty: no remarks against LGBTQ+ people, women or migrants, no conspiracy-theory slide and no climate-denial. I found no sign of him platforming people who push harm either, though I couldn't open the articles, so this rests on search results only. It's a thin record, but a clean one, and appearing in drag on national TV points the right way.
On the court record, searches turned up no convictions, fines or rulings against him. That's a good sign, though I couldn't read the underlying pages, so call it a clean search rather than a guarantee.
The good stuff is real. Trade outlets reported that a run of his shows in the Netherlands sold autographed T-shirts to raise about €50,000 for Dutch relief after Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines in 2013. In 2022 his A State of Trance team hosted a Poland fundraiser, part of events reported to have raised over €1 million for Ukraine.
So would we support him? Yes. The evidence is lighter than for a big-name star with a paper trail, but everything found points the same way. A DJ who gives to disaster relief and puts on a wig and a frock for a message about acceptance is easy to like.