His own biggest smash was 2013’s Wake Me Up, a folk music crossover that was booed by the audience at Ultra when Avicii debuted it at the festival in 2013. He co-produced a track on Madonna’s 2015 LP Rebel Heart while Sky Full of Stars, a 2014 collaboration with Coldplay, was a worldwide radio hit. The freshness and crossover appeal of his sound also brought a line of superstars eager for EDM crossover plays to his door. In a 2013 interview, he told me these nominations were the proudest moments of his career. His music earned him a pair of Grammy nominations, one for his work on David Guetta’s Sunshine and another in 2013 for Levels. He once called attention the worst part of his job, saying, “I love what I do, but I’ve never liked being recognized or being in the spotlight.”Īvicii performs during the Ultra Music Festival in 2012. If he was uncomfortable in the media, the stage seemed to be a sweet spot. Onstage, Bergling typically sported jeans, a T-shirt and a backwards baseball cap, with his right hand lifted and moving along to the music while he happily shuffled behind the decks. With his head floating on billboards along the interstate from Los Angeles to Vegas, he was literally the EDM poster boy. Through the guidance of his manager Ash Pournouri, a Svengali type with whom Avicii was deeply close, Avicii raised the pay grade for DJs throughout the scene, pushing into the mid six figures for festival and club sets. And neither did Avicii, who crisscrossed the globe headlining the world’s biggest dance music and mainstream pop festivals – Tomorrowland, Ultra Miami, EDC Las Vegas, Coachella and more – and signing on for massively lucrative Las Vegas residences just as the city was establishing itself as the United States’ EDM hub. Shiny, populist and capitalist to its core, EDM ran counter to the defining values held dear by many fringe-dwelling old school scenesters. It was a dance dance revolution that didn’t sit well with many veteran scenesters who had been plugging away in the electronic music underground since the late 70s. He was anti-politic, existing in a bubble of champagne and confetti bursts, and his music served as a sonic antidepressant for listeners around the world. EDM was collective catharsis, and Avicii was, for a time, the biggest artist delivering it. While grunge and hip-hop had been the bluntly angry clarion calls for previous generations, EDM provided these kids with the spirit of celebration and unity that ran counter to headlines on the nightly news. Avicii’s music was wildly popular among a generation coming of age in the post 9/11 era of perpetual war and economic uncertainty. These tracks became anthems for the millions of millennials gathering at massive festivals to partake in the relentlessly escapist electronic music scene of the late aughts. With them, Avicii paid homage to influences like Swedish House Mafia and Daft Punk while at the same time creating the tension build and release template still being replicated nearly a decade later. Tracks including Levels, Fade Into Darkness and Silhouettes were slick, massive, earnest and unapologetically pop-oriented. Discovered on MySpace by veteran Dutch producer Laidback Luke, Bergling took his name from the Buddhist term for hell, avīci, and began pumping out an arsenal of hits that quickly defined a burgeoning genre. Avicii was one of the first EDM stars to arrive on the scene fully formed, and he hit just as dance music was for the first time gaining mainstream popularity in the US. In interviews, his responses could come off as canned or reticent, as reporters probed for answers from an artist seemingly more comfortable at his computer assembling tracks.īut his music was a different story. Friends and colleagues described him as shy and quiet, a sweet kid with the heart of a technician. All cheekbones and platinum hair, he never seemed entirely comfortable in the spotlight. Just 21 years old at the time of his breakthrough, Bergling was perhaps an unlikely star.
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