Tagged: mac davis
Avicii Sparks Controversy at Ultra Music Festival 2013!
As another mind-blowing year of Ultra Music Festival came to an end with two music-filled thrilling weekends of dollops of revelry. Yet amongst the umpteen number of enthralling sets, one particular set which is now a much talked about story has been the hot topic of conversation in the dance music world in the past few days viz. Avicii’s controversial set at Ultra’s Weekend 2.
For people who didn’t get the chance to view the set on the incredible Ultra Live youtube feature here’s what happened, approximately midway through Avicii’s standard lineup of house tracks, the set suddenly came to a halt leaving some confused but then again the young Swede had a plan up his sleeve! The massive sound setup stopped churning out tracks and instead the thousands of fans present were treated to an unusual medley of acoustic performances featuring bluegrass artist Mac Davis, members of the band Incubus and the rapper Aloe Blacc. Word was that all of the performances were apparently snippets from Avicii’s upcoming album due out this summer.
Needless to say, this unique experience definitely caused quite a stir in the dance music community amongst the festivalgoers and video streamers who thought they would be getting something quite different from the Swedish icon and even from some of the stalwarts of the industry, some of whom accused Avicii of “jumping the EDM shark” and made fun of the “country music” that graced Ultra’s main stage.
Here are some of the best reactions posted by some of the best from the community.
Avicii expectedly has defended his creative choices, saying that a lot of set viewers “didn’t understand,” and that “people will soon see what [this new sound] is all about”. The Swede also went on to issue a response to the controversy through his Facebook as well, saying:
Avicii’s official statement on his Facebook page after his set at UMF, Miami Weekend 2!
The general word seems to be that Avicii is walking a tightrope by gambling that his name & recognition can carry forth to an experimental project in a music scene which though we all love and appreciate may not be very welcoming of the change. Whether such an unproven experiment can succeed in the global arena remains to be seen, since for the most part producers are expected to have a consistent sound, and are known by the genre of the music they create.
Perhaps this new era of digitalized music and distribution has made these creative experiments easier and more accessible to the public. Then again on the other hand, Avicii might be overestimating himself in embarking on this unprecedented creative journey and expecting the public to respond positively.
Can the Swedish house magnate pull off what most people view as a strange and unexpected turn in his sound? Only time will tell.
Avicii brewing new album and working with a wide spectrum of musicians like Nile Rodgers, Mike Shinoda & more.
Avicii knows that in the current world of EDM, it’s all about singles, so to him it’s the perfect time to make a complete song cycle. “Everything is single-oriented now, but that’s why the only reason to make an album is if the whole way through is a great album and every track is like a single”, The world #3 whose real name is Tim Bergling recently told Rolling Stone. He also went on to say that, “No one’s doing this approach to the electronic music, so it’s exciting to me that EDM is at a place where it’s even possible to do it like this”.
When he says “do it like this”, what he means is putting together an incredible group of artists from all walks of music to make his next album, which he says is due in late spring or early summer. The roster includes Mike Einzinger of Incubus, Linkin Park’s Mike Shinoda, disco king (and David Bowie and Daft Punk collaborator) Nile Rodgers as well as Mac Davis, the country great who wrote the Elvis Presley hits “A Little Less Conversation,” “Kentucky Rain,” and “In The Ghetto”.
Mike Shinoda
For Avicii, working with all of these different and talented artists allows him to complete his vision. “If you put me in a room with someone like Mike [Einzinger] or an amazing singer, I have the melodies in my head and I know exactly where to take everything, but I’m not able to do it myself, I’m not able to sing. So when I’m with someone who does sing and all these acoustic instruments, I know exactly what to do with it” he said.
That vision is a collection that he promises will be much more song-based than anything he’s done yet. “I have access to those people now, so it’s going to be a lot of acoustic elements, but kind of twisted a little bit. It’s way more songs than I’ve done before and it’s everything from folk records to more soulful” he said.
Avicii with Einziger in the studio
He’s particularly excited about the teaming with Davis. “We’ve done two songs together, it’s a trip”, he also said that, “He’s singing on one of them. At the moment in the production, it’s kind of a duet between him and Aloe Blacc and the other one has Audra Mae singing on it. And Mac is one of those, he comes from an era that really doesn’t exist anymore, especially in lyrics”.
The two came together, indirectly, via golf. Avicii went on to say, “Neil Jacobson at Interscope, they play golf together and he knew that I was looking for all of these kind of weird influences for my album, like folk and country”, adding that, “I think that’s going to be one of the highlights on the album, the kind of songwriting. When you put a voice like Audra behind it, it’s kind of like Adele meets Nina Simone. When you put a voice like that behind what Mac writes and me in charge of the melodies, it’s so amazing the place he took it. I just met him and he played it on guitar, a song he had from before, and then we switched it around a hundred percent. But we kept like the vibe of his lyrics. It sounds like a classic.”
“Classic” is a recurring word as Avicii discusses the new album. “Me and my manager have been through this so many times, we want eight to ten songs on the album, no more, and we want every single one of them to be a classic,” he said. “I’m not being cocky enough to say that’s what I’m going to accomplish, but that’s the goal”. To that end, although he estimates that he already has twenty tracks done, he is still looking for more – hence a four-day session this coming week in L.A. with Nile Rodgers.
With Nile Rodgers (L)
“That could be so amazing. Dude wrote ‘Le Freak,’ that’s all you have to say”, said the brilliant Avicii while talking about Rodgers. “We were going back and forth with conversation and he’s like, ‘Oh, I’m so looking forward to this, it’s like when I told David Bowie. . . .’ There’s so much history.”
If the album does become the classic Avicii envisions, he has a hell of a backstory for the future. After starting the new year with eight tracks completed for the album, Avicii lost his laptop. “My driver stole it, it is fucked up,” he said, and launched into a story of New Year’s Eve pre-concert mayhem in Las Vegas. “My crew took the bags to the room and then they missed that one car ’cause they thought all the luggage was in one car”, said the talented swede. “They didn’t check in that car, it had my computer bag in it. He went on the run and he’s blacklisted, but I don’t even care about getting him back, I just want my computer back. I had eight songs done on the album already. Luckily enough I still have all the MP3s, so the ideas are still there”.
After such exciting news the wait for the album has started growing bigger and bigger with each passing day and every Avicii fan worldwide can only wait and pray for a fast release of the album as it definitely promises to carry some soon to be great tracks coming from the man who’s moved the whole world with a whole lot of hits in the past and even recently