Remembering AVICII: A playlist of Avicii’s most memorable tracks

Team Udayavani, Apr 21, 2018, 5:02 PM IST

Swedish DJ Tim Bergling a.k.a Avicii was found dead on Friday afternoon in Muscat, Oman. The 28-year old DJ retired from the spotlight in March 2016, but continued to produce music. Avicii was a pioneer in the field of Electronic Dance Music.

Avicii had come a long way since 2008. He entered the mainstream through his hit, ‘Levels’. Since then, he had been collaborating with major artists in the industry like David Guetta, Coldplay, Rita Ora, and Madonna. He was nominated several times for Grammys, AMAs, and Billboard music awards.
He struggled to cope up with the partying lifestyle that entailed the celebrity tag. His excessive alcohol use had deteriorated his heath which is why he had been cancelling shows since 2014.

Tim Bergling was the face of EDM. But he was a shy one for that matter. He was a man of incredible talent and a creative genius. His music always went viral and appealed to everyone. You just cannot resist bopping your head or tapping your feet to his mixed beats.

Tim was immortalized through Mike Posner’s song ‘I took a pill in Ibiza’. Posner mentions an Avicii concert in his lyrics- “I took a pill in Ibiza/ to show Avicii I was cool”.

The stars of the music industry took to social media to pay a tribute to him. Calvin Harris called Tim, “a beautiful soul, passionate and extremely talented.”  Deadmau5 who had mocked Tim for retiring early also paid his respects to him on Twitter. “Nobody can deny what he has accomplished and done for modern dance music and I’m very proud of him,” he tweeted. The young DJ had touched upon many lives during his lifetime.

The poster boy of EDM will always remain in our hearts. As the world mourns the death of the young electronic dance music pioneer, here’s looking at five of his most popular numbers.

1. Levels
At the top we have the very song that brought Avicii into the limelight. The song has elements of EDM and soul with simple lyrics sampled from Elta James’ single ‘Something’s got a hold on me’.

Avicii has changed the world of EDM in the short life he lived. The young musician may be gone, but he’ll never be forgotten. 

2. Wake Me Up
This 2011 hit went extremely viral. The Youtube music video was viewed over 1.4 billion times and is the 39^th most popular video on the site. This song will get you dancing even if you claim you don’t like it.

3. Fade into Darkness
The song is from early 2011. It has an instrumental and a lyrical version. The song had some controversy surrounding plagiarism by Leona Lewis, which was all solved outside the confines of the court.

4. I Could Be the One feat. Nicky Romero
This song was released in 2012 and topped the charts in several countries. The Youtube music video garnered around 230,229,982 views.

5. Silhouettes
Bergling produced this song around six years ago, in 2012. The song features Salem Al Fakir’s vocals. It takes you to 2012 when the Avicii fever had spread to everyone you knew.

– Anusha Shetty