Steve Aoki & Felix Jaehn – Can’t Go Home ft. Adam Lambert

Now this is a collaboration that we never saw coming. Dance music may be the one genre where unexpected collaborations are the norm, more than they are a surprise, and every so often, two producers on the complete opposite ends of the spectrum team up on a track that dazzles, but who would have thought Steve Aoki, the cake throwing Dim Mak label head, would team up with the tropical house maestro, Felix Jaehn, and Adam Lambert on a track titled “Can’t Go Home.” Steve Aoki is best known for his high-energy brand of electro house, but he’s shed his typical sonic stylings for an upbeat, tropical house sound more in line with Felix Jaehn’s productions. The duo elevate Adam Lambert’s radio-ready croons with an assortment of flute melodies and sun-soaked percussion, as the two stars team up to deliver an anthem perfect for the summer.

It’s a genuinely odd pairing on paper. Felix Jaehn was still riding the wave of his breakout “Cheerleader” remix, which had turned the young German producer into one of tropical house’s most in-demand names practically overnight. Aoki, meanwhile, had spent years building his reputation on cake fights, crowd surfs, and some of the rowdiest electro house sets on the festival circuit, about as far from beachside chill as dance music gets. Pairing him with Jaehn’s breezy, whistled-melody style is the kind of move that could have gone very wrong, but instead it works because Aoki fully commits to stepping outside his comfort zone rather than trying to bend the track back toward his own sound.

Adam Lambert is the other wildcard here. Best known for his run on American Idol and later as the touring frontman alongside the surviving members of Queen, he’s not an artist you’d typically expect to show up on a dance record, let alone a tropical house one. His voice ends up being the perfect fit though, powerful enough to sit on top of the flute lines and percussion without getting buried, and polished enough to make this feel like a proper radio single rather than just another producer team-up. The track was released through Ultra Music, which tracks given how much of Aoki’s crossover pop work has found a home there.

Give it a listen below and let us know if this unlikely trio won you over as much as they won us over.