Goa Mix, also known as The Goa Mix, is a two-hour DJ mix by British musician and DJ Paul Oakenfold. It was originally broadcast on BBC Radio 1 as an Essential Mix on 18 December 1994 after the producer of the show, Eddie Gordon, chose Oakenfold to produce an eclectic DJ mix for the show which featured a burgeoning variation of electronic styles, having begun the previous year. Oakenfold had, at this point, developed his own unique goa trance sound, influenced by his time at hippy gatherings on beaches in Goa, and employed it heavily into the mix, which also made pioneering use of film score samples. Oakenfold used the mix an experiment in which he tried to fuse electronic music, especially trance music, as well as film score music, and then to overlay the result with vocal parts, samples and additional production. The mix was split into two parts, later referred to as the Silver Mix and the Gold Mix respectively. Reflecting the Goa influence, the album title did not evolve beyond its simplistic working name.

Today Goa Mix is regarded as a ground breaking and a landmark for Oakenfold, Essential Mix and goa trance. It was released as a limited edition album by Cream Records in 1995 and was later reworked by Oakenfold as The Goa Mix 2011 for release in 2010 on New State Music. It was voted the best Essential Mix ever by BBC Radio 1 listeners in 2000 and also won a Silver Award in the Specialist Music Programme category at the 1997 Sony Radio Awards.

In 1992, when U2 released their single "Even Better Than the Real Thing", Paul Oakenfold's "Perfecto Mix", named for his record label Perfecto Records founded in 1989, reached a higher charted position in the UK Singles Chart than the original version, reaching number 8 whereas the original reached number 12. In 1993 with the success of his last remix as Perfecto, he was hired by U2 to provide a DJ set in a support band slot on their innovative Zoo TV Tour, replacing BP Fallon on the 1993 legs in Europe and Australia, New Zealand, and Japan, with more than fifty shows on the "Zooropa '93" and "Zoomerang" legs from 7 May to 10 December of the same year. Arguably at his biggest sense of exposure so far, it was also at this time he began producing his own tracks as well, and after visiting in the beaches of Goa in India, he began blending their native Goa music, fusing it with similar-sounding European tracks to create his own distinct sound. The term for this style of music became known as goa trance, and predated the typical current usage for the term trance music. Goa trance is characterised by making heavy use of melodies and synthesizers in its structure, as opposed to the bass lines and rhythms of house music that was prevalent in UK nightclubs. Goa trance was also typified by having faster beats per minute (BPM) than most other genres of dance music.

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