{"id":355,"date":"2018-04-22T13:10:34","date_gmt":"2018-04-22T13:10:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/edict.ashoka.edu.in\/index.php\/2018\/04\/22\/avici-01-remembering-avicii-and-the-state-of-edm\/"},"modified":"2019-04-15T14:08:03","modified_gmt":"2019-04-15T14:08:03","slug":"avici-01-remembering-avicii-and-the-state-of-edm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/edictarchive.the-edict.in\/index.php\/2018\/04\/22\/avici-01-remembering-avicii-and-the-state-of-edm\/","title":{"rendered":"Avici (01): Remembering Avicii and the State of EDM"},"content":{"rendered":"

Himali Thakur, Class of 2019<\/em><\/p>\n

Last Friday, a shocking piece of news hit social media: Avicii had passed away. His representative released a statement<\/a> later, which read: \u201cIt is with profound sorrow that we announce the loss of Tim Bergling, also known as Avicii\u2026. He was found dead in Muscat, Oman this Friday afternoon local time, April 20th.\u201d Bergling\u2019s family has refused to reveal the cause for his demise, but foul-play has been ruled out <\/a>by the Gulf Sultunate\u2019s police. Regardless of the reason, there is no doubt that the European and American dance music scenes have lost a revolutionary with this incident.<\/p>\n

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Avicii\u2019s logo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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In the 2000s, dance music producers began to carve out a space for themselves with the global audience. The phrase \u201cElectronic Dance Music\u201d (often abbreviated EDM) became a buzzword in the 2010s with the coming of progressive and electro house producers such as David Guetta, Swedish House Mafia, and Tiesto. Many of these artists had been producing tracks for well-known singers such as Black-Eyed Peas and Flo Rida, but didn\u2019t rise to prominence until the late 2000s.<\/p>\n

Avicii rose to prominence with this wave of EDM. He was picked up by the Dutch house producer Laidback Luke, after Avicii won a production competition hosted by BBC Radio One\u2019s Pete Tong. Avicii\u2019s 2011 hit, \u201cLevels\u201d peaked in dance music charts in UK, US, Germany, and Netherlands, among other countries, catapulting him to global fame. He was soon nominated for Best Dance Recording at the Grammy Awards: \u201cSunshine\u201d with David Guetta (nominated 2012) and \u201cLevels\u201d (nominated 2013). In 2013, he also released \u201cWake Me Up\u201d, the lead single from his debut album, True<\/em> (2013). Despite the album\u2019s departure from the \u201cBig room house\u201d sound that was all the rage in EDM at that point, True<\/em> was well-received among fans and critics<\/a>. In December of that year, Avicii even made his mark in India<\/a> with a multi-city tour. Avicii followed his debut album with Stories<\/em> (2015), and, most recently, the Av\u012bci<\/em> (01)<\/em> EP in 2017. Around this time, he co-produced Coldplay\u2019s hit songs \u201cA Sky Full of Stars\u201d (2014) and \u201cHymn for the Weekend\u201d (2016).<\/p>\n

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Source: EDM\u00a0Sauce<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The dance music community gave Avicii plenty of love, if his social media following and DJ Mag ratings are anything to go by. Avicii\u2019s rise, however, did not take place in isolation. When he was rising, EDM, too, was soaring. If rap, punk, and rock were the pop of a decade ago, the happy burst of electronic music became the new anthem. In early 2010s, there were hosts of new producers like Hardwell, Afrojack, Martin Garrix, and KSHMR creating chart hits. The term \u201cEDM\u201d was made to embrace more than just the house and trance genres\u200a\u2014\u200ait included deep, techno, dubstep, and trap.<\/p>\n

Concurrently, festivals were getting bigger and bigger. India had mainstream producers like Armin Van Buuren, Hardwell, Martin Garrix, Above & Beyond headlining Sunburn, Supersonic, and EVC. Last year, Ultra Music Festival made its advent to India with the Road to Ultra installment; the Delhi edition was headlined by The Chainsmokers. Tomorrowland has been testing the waters with live screenings of its Belgium installment in major Indian cities since 2016. EDM has been gathering more fans, and more content to please every fan, waving its P.L.U.R. (Peace, Love, Unity, Respect) banners everywhere.<\/p>\n

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Avicii\u2019s last live set at Ushuaia Beach, Ibiza | Source: EDM\u00a0Tunes<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But what is the toll of all these gargantuan festivals? There are drug overdoses and drunken altercations<\/a> haunting these \u201chappy\u201d places. Avicii becomes a segue to understanding the neon-coloured \u201clive fast, die young\u201d message of EDM. Back-to-back sets at big festivals, and the bigger parties every night eventually caught up with Avicii<\/a>. Rumours of substance abuse were making the rounds on the Internet when Avicii cancelled some concerts in his 2014 tour. He cited health reasons\u200a\u2014\u200aacute pancreatitis that needed immediate surgery. Apparently, alcohol abuse had exacerbated the problem. In 2016, Avicii completely quit touring<\/a>, stating that it was taking a toll on his health, and he also wanted to focus on new music. Things started to look up when last week, Avicii\u2019s 2017 EP, Avici (01)<\/em>, was nominated for the Billboard Music Awards<\/a> for Best Electronic Album. Two days later, Avicii was found dead in a resort in Muscat, Oman, where he was supposed to be on a break.<\/p>\n

The EDM community has a habit of generating a lot of self-loath. Every year, \u201cexperts\u201d say that the genre has grown too big; the EDM bubble is about to burst and leave the genre(s) for dead. Whenever the controversial DJ Mag announces its Top DJ, there\u2019s a backlash from non-mainstream producers (and in recent years, mainstream producers like Dillon Francis, Hardwell, 3LAU, and deadmau5) about how the voting is unfair and rigged, and the ranking doesn\u2019t really make sense. But every year EDM comes bouncing back, hardly losing anything for all the criticism and the shit-flinging. Bergling\u2019s death, however, may finally hold up a mirror to the adulterated ecstasy- and MDMA-fueled monster EDM is becoming. If nothing else, his demise should be the sign that EDM needs to become more self-aware, and look back at what it is leaving behind.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Himali Thakur, Class of 2019 Last Friday, a shocking piece of news hit social media: Avicii had passed away. His representative released a statement later, which read: \u201cIt is with profound sorrow that we announce the loss of Tim Bergling, also known as Avicii\u2026. He was found dead in Muscat, Oman this Friday afternoon local…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[27,80,145],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/edictarchive.the-edict.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/edictarchive.the-edict.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/edictarchive.the-edict.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/edictarchive.the-edict.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/edictarchive.the-edict.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=355"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/edictarchive.the-edict.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1500,"href":"http:\/\/edictarchive.the-edict.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355\/revisions\/1500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/edictarchive.the-edict.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/edictarchive.the-edict.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/edictarchive.the-edict.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}