Joel Corry

Camden, Geordie Shore and a decade of not quite breaking through

Joel Corry was born on 10 June 1989 in Camden, north London, and started DJing at 13, in the years when UK garage was the dominant sound of the city's pirate radio. For a long time that was a sideline rather than a career. He ran a personal-training business, launched an app under his own name, and set up a leisurewear label called Most Rated — a company that now doubles as the imprint his early records came out on.

The wider public met him first on television. Corry had a recurring role on MTV's Geordie Shore from 2012 to 2013, alongside his then girlfriend Sophie Kasaei, and returned briefly in 2017. That exposure did not convert into music. His first two dance singles, 'Back Again' and 'Light It Up', arrived in 2015, and what followed was four years of steady, largely unnoticed output: 'Just Wanna', 'All the Things', 'All Night', 'Sunlight' and 'Feel This Way' in 2017; 'Hurt', 'All I Need', 'Only You', 'Good As Gold' and 'Fallen' in 2018. None of them charted in a way that changed anything.

The useful thing about that stretch is what it built. By the time a hit landed, Corry had been making club records for several years and had his own label, management structure and gym-world audience already in place.

'Sorry', then six weeks at number one

The turn came in April 2019 with 'Sorry', a reworking built around vocals from Hayley May. Play on the British reality series Love Island pushed it into the top ten in the UK, Scotland and Ireland, and it peaked at number six on the Official Singles Chart. The promotional copy for his December London show claims the track set an all-time UK 24-hour Shazam record.

2020 settled the question. 'Lonely' came first, then 'Head & Heart' with MNEK in July, which gave Corry his first UK number one and held the top of the Official Singles Chart for six consecutive weeks. The Official Charts named it the biggest dance track of the year in the UK; it also became his first entry on the Billboard Hot 100 and was certified platinum at home.

From there the collaborations got larger — David Guetta and RAYE on 'BED', Tom Grennan on 'Lionheart (Fearless)' in October 2022 — and the formula hardened into something recognisable: a big topline, a piano-house or bass-house drop, a running time built for radio rather than a club peak. Across the next few years that model produced seven platinum UK records and five BRIT nominations, by the count his own promoters use.

Another Friday Night: the pop-house peak

The debut album arrived in two stages. A 13-track digital version appeared on 14 July 2023; the official 18-track release, running 49 minutes and 47 seconds, followed on 6 October 2023 through Perfect Havoc, Asylum and Warner. It functioned less as a statement record than as a reckoning-up: every track but the title song had already been issued as a single, among them MNEK, Rita Ora, David Guetta and Charli XCX features.

Another Friday Night reached number five on the UK Albums Chart and topped the UK Dance Albums chart, hitting number two in Scotland and 22 in Ireland. It went gold in the UK and platinum in both Canada and the Netherlands. Six of its singles had reached the UK top ten, including 'Head & Heart' and, in 2023, '0800 Heaven' with Nathan Dawe and Ella Henderson, which peaked at number nine.

It also marked a ceiling. The singles that followed through 2024 charted far lower — 'Drinkin'' with MK and Rita Ora at 44, 'Hey DJ' at 59 — while others, including 'Tonight (D.I.Y.A)' with Jax Jones and Jason Derulo and 'Upside Down' with Robin Schulz, did not trouble the upper reaches at all.

Tech house, Spinnin' and the 2026 records

The response has been to push the music towards the floor rather than the radio. DJ Mag now files him under piano house and tech house, and the release schedule since 2025 reads like a producer rebuilding a club identity: 'Tears On My Piano', 'I Love Ur GF', 'Daydream' with Jem Cooke, 'Phases' with Abi Flynn, 'Stay A Little Longer' with Galantis and Izzy Bizu, and a Jennifer Lopez collaboration, 'Get Right'.

2026 has been singles-only, with no second album announced. 'Stuck in a Loop' opened the year, followed by 'Devotion (Sweetest Emotion)' with RAHH and 'Don't Go Breaking My Heart' with Hannah Boleyn. 'Whisper' landed on 10 July 2026 through Spinnin' Records — a label move that says something about where he is aiming — with an extended mix for DJs and a Will Sparks remix on 4 September 2026. He also runs a mix series, Desire Radio, currently at episode 078.

Standing, October 2026

DJ Mag published its 2026 Top 100 DJs results on 7 October, a poll decided entirely by public vote. Corry placed 44th; David Guetta took first for a sixth time. It is a mid-table position in a poll that rewards festival ubiquity, and it comes after a conspicuous gap: the summer before this one was the first in years in which he held no Ibiza residency of his own.

That gap closed in February 2026, when O Beach Ibiza announced him as what it called the biggest headline resident in the day club's history, with monthly Mondays in San Antonio on 18 May, 15 June, 20 July, 17 August and 21 September, plus the closing party. The announcement put his catalogue at four billion streams. Ibiza Spotlight's verdict in late August was that he had returned as though he had never been away, and had put his name in the window to go weekly in 2027.

Around the residency he worked as a guest on other people's nights rather than his own — Tomorrowland's Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike parties at Ushuaïa on 27 May and 26 August, Martin Garrix on 27 August, and David Guetta's F*** Me I'm Famous on 28 September. The autumn is a long-haul run: the O Beach closing party on 11 October, then Kathmandu on 16 October, Huang Pu in China on 18 October and Ocean Casino Resort in Atlantic City on 31 October. One date sits on sale beyond that, and a festival booking at Bolesworth Castle in Cheshire is already logged for 23 July 2027.

The show as it runs now

Two formats dominate. The Ibiza one is daytime and long: O Beach Mondays ran 13:00 to 22:00 in May and June, extended to 23:00 from July, with Corry headlining a bill rather than playing all of it. Jamie Love and Sam Dungate held the resident warm-up slots across the season; the July date added Hix and Lucy Jane, and RAHH appeared as a live vocal PA in both May and July, singing the record she cut with him. The closing party on 11 October runs 13:00 to 22:00 with a larger ensemble bill.

The club format is the opposite end of the clock. The London date on 12 December at Outernet Live, promoted by Louder Events, is billed as a solo headline from 22:00 to 04:00 — his largest London headline show so far, and advertised as electronic, house and tech house rather than as a run through the chart singles.

What he actually plays sits between the two. The Ibiza listings describe bright, vocal-led, feel-good house aimed at open-air and pool crowds — the big records, the garage-inflected material that 'Sorry' came out of, and his own edits of tracks cut with Guetta, Charli XCX, Becky Hill and RAYE. The clubbier bookings lean harder on the tech-house end that the 2026 singles have been built for.