Ten Years Ago Today, Eric Prydz Delivered 'Opus,' His Best Work To Date

Opus saw Swedish producer and DJ Eric Prydz arrive at an intersection between commercial and underground that only he could have forged.

In 2016, the EDM explosion of previous years had started to die down, and a generation of new fans began to explore more time-tested sounds. Conveniently waiting for them was Opus by Eric Prydz. Not quite mainstream, not quite underground, but compelling from start to finish, it couldn’t have arrived at a better point in the Swedish producer and DJ’s career.

The timing was no accident. Over the course of the 2015 festival season, Prydz had released three EPs titled Pryda Vol. I, II, and III, all comprised of his music from the ten years prior. Opus followed on February 5, 2016, offering up 19 of his then-recent and most refined progressive house cuts to his voracious worldwide fan base.

Why was this important? To understand, it helps to look back on how dance music has been consumed over the years. In the rave heyday of the ’90s, DJs spent considerable time crate digging to ensure that fans heard tracks they could hardly find anywhere else during their sets. Now that virtually all music is available on demand 24/7 via streaming platforms, the mystique of the average selector has waned.

Not so for Eric Prydz. Seamlessly integrating music production and DJing — while so many artists lean more toward one than the other — the onetime fourth Swedish House Mafia member had teased out a wealth of recorded music for years during performances prior to releasing it. In doing so, he gradually amassed a diehard fan base that would go through the trouble to ID his tracks in online forums, often coming up with their own titles for as-yet-unreleased cuts.

And after patiently waiting for interest in his understated artist project reach a fever pitch, Prydz delivered the aptly titled Opus. It served as more than a mile marker of how far he’d come. The music spoke for itself, capturing as a vibrant cross-section of his instantly recognizable sound signature.

Tracks like “Liam,” “Som Sas,” and “Trubble” show that Prydz’s calculated restraint always starts in the studio, each slowly unfolding as sonic elements layer their way into the arrangement. Meanwhile, numbers like “Som Sas” and “Moody Mondays” lean into the synthwave influences ever present in his discography. The latter even incorporates vocals from The Cut that liken it to early New Order releases.

Prydz also tapped Tom Cane for singalong anthems “Liberate” and “Generate,” which respectively came out ahead of the album in June 2014 and June 2015. Rob Swire of Pendulum fame even featured on “Breathe,” whose melodic flair and syncopated beat differentiated it from anything else on the album.

And while “Floj” and “Sunset At Café Mambo” stand out as especially inventive concepts, the title track was far and away the most iconic piece on Opus. Painstakingly building to a crescendo of kaleidoscopic proportions, it closed out the album out and grew virtually omnipresent during the 2016 festival season. Paris Hilton even played it out to the chagrin of countless budding dance music purists.

The music making up Opus may not reach as wide an audience if it were released in 2026. Tectonic shifts in the social media landscape have shortened attention spans en masse — and even if they didn’t, every new generation of dance music fans will always shape the art form with new ideas.

But the way Eric Prydz executed the album rollout remains as timeless as ever. It’s simply not enough for a DJ to play out their songs in the present day. By taking the road less traveled and curating an experience that can’t be duplicated anywhere else, an artist stands to set themselves up lasting success, not to mention a legion of adoring fans.

Relive the singular moment in time that was Opus, and visit Eric Prydz’s social media channels to hear his take on dance music in the present day.