AVICII TRUE CD COVER FULL
The album’s 12 tracks feature some familiar collaborators from Avicii’s world- Coldplay frontman Chris Martin, who enlisted Bergling to produce their Ghost Stories cut “A Sky Full of Stars,” and R&B singer Aloe Blacc, of “ Wake Me Up” fame-as well as Las Vegas pop-rockers Imagine Dragons and singer Noonie Bao.ĮDM’s big names work in sound and style foremost, and perhaps the biggest takeaway from TIM is that, similar to many of his peers, Bergling saw EDM’s drop-reliant trend crashing and had his sights set on mass-market pop as a whole. It’s sadly ironic that, despite Bergling’s fastidiousness, TIM was unfinished at the time of his death after being approached by Bergling’s father Klas, his friends Carl Falk, Vincent Pontare, and Salem Al Fakir stepped in to help finish TIM, proceeds of which go toward the Tim Bergling Foundation, established by his family to benefit mental-health and suicide-prevention charities. As one of EDM’s most recognizable faces (he even notched a Ralph Lauren campaign the same year as the GQ profile), Bergling has come to represent the EDM era-a musical trend that rippled through popular culture as a whole-in a different light than when he was alive. Two years after retiring from touring in 2016, Bergling, 28, died by alleged suicide last year in Muscat, Oman. For all the jabs that were thrown at EDM’s practitioners during its height, it’s unquestionable that its biggest stars were on a constant grind in a cultural environment that granted easy access to hedonism. The 2017 documentary Avicii: True Stories depicted marathon recording sessions in which he’d willfully skip meals, while multiple reports on the making of his final and posthumously released album, TIM, have accentuated Bergling’s capacity to push himself to the point of total burnout. Touring took a well-documented toll on Bergling’s health, and his tendency to overwork himself extended to the studio as well. A warts-and-all 2013 GQ profile chronicled his struggle with alcohol abuse, and he was eventually diagnosed with acute pancreatitis-the symptoms of which include “severe, constant” abdominal pain. But as his career as Avicii rocketed upwards, Bergling’s personal problems became an inescapable part of his narrative.
There’s a scene of magical realism in the recent Elton John biopic Rocketman where, during the piano rocker’s legendary residency at Los Angeles venue the Troubadour, the entire audience literally levitates during an electrifying performance of “Crocodile Rock,” and it’s not hard to imagine something similar taking place in a raver-packed field, a collective festival throng floating on air to the cascading synth chorus of 2011’s EDM totem “ Levels.”ĭespite counting a number of real-deal stars in its confines, EDM itself-a subgenre of electronic music in strict economic terms, less definable by its toplines than its bottom line-has rarely made much hay of those stars’ actual personalities, to the point where some of them rarely (if ever) reveal their faces to the general public. What will Tim Bergling’s legacy be? At his commercial peak, the late dance producer, best known as Avicii, was reliable for field-sweeping big-tent anthems explicitly designed for mass uplift.
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