The Chainsmokers

“Everything starts with the song,” The Chainsmokers’ Andrew Taggart tells Apple Music. “That’s the most important thing to us.” Taggart and his music partner Alex Pall got their start in EDM, but they found their calling as hitmaking multi-hyphenates—producers, songwriters and collaborators with unerring instincts for pop that moves both hips and heart. Taggart and Pall met through their future manager in 2012, and in 2014, they went viral with “#SELFIE”, a social-media satire accompanied by an earthshaking drop. They spent the next couple of years headlining increasingly bigger stages, but with 2016’s “Roses” and “Don’t Let Me Down”, they flipped the script, using trap-infused future bass as the springboard for featured singers ROZES and Daya. It was 2016’s “Closer”, Taggart’s debut as a singer, that sealed their rep as next-gen visionaries: A nostalgic duet with Halsey, the song showcased not just The Chainsmokers’ versatility but also their knack for distilling wide-screen emotions into a single devastating verse. On their 2017 debut album, Memories…Do Not Open, they leaned into that sensitivity, chronicling a Bonnie-and-Clyde romance on “Paris” and bringing their signature synths to the Coldplay collab “Something Just Like This”. Since then, The Chainsmokers have turned into one of pop’s most industrious acts, trickling out monthly singles—both 2018’s Sick Boy and 2019’s World War Joy were assembled from those drops—and working with newcomers like Lennon Stella and icons like blink-182. “There’s a lot of thought put into not only who can sing this the right way,” says Taggart, but also “what’s an interesting collaboration—what’s going to be a new flavour that we’ve never had before”.