Dance
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Over the past 25-plus years, Paavo Siljamäki has become a leading figured in the global dance music scene via his work with beloved trance trio Above & Beyond. Together, the guys — Siljamäki, Jono Grant and Tony McGuinness — have played all the world’s major festivals, launched a radio show, an international event series and the eternally influential Anjunbeats and Anjundadeep labels, all the while cultivating a fanbase whose devotion veers toward the religious.
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Siljamäki was ready to walk away from it all.
The Finnish producer entered a period of burnout in 2019, feeling depressed, depleted and unsure if he wanted to keep making electronic music or any music at all. It was a dilemma he calls “existential,” as he deliberated starting an entirely new career. The situation was compounded when he became seriously sick with COVID in the spring of 2019, the beginning of the pandemic. He recovered, then got COVID again. Then again. Then again.
But over time, he started healing not just his physical body but the mental/emotional part of himself through a perhaps unsurprising form of medicine: clubbing. Going out dancing with friends at clubs and festivals, he rediscovered the reason he started making electronic music in the first place: his love of the genre and the cathartic, often ecstatic experience is facilitates and the community of music-lovers that populate this world.
So he didn’t start that tech company, he just started making music. Initially meant to be a purely creative endeavor, the sounds that were coming out — deeper than the often anthemic sounds of Above & Beyond — eventually formed a solo album, Deeper Tales, released last week Friday (April 21) via Anjunabeats.
This project — made under Siljamäki’s longstanding P.O.S. moniker — is dually dark and ebullient, from the chromatic synth of opener “Is It OK?” to the directly joyful “Polar Bears” (with lontime Ajuna artist Spencer Brown) to the tough, shimmeringly sexy “Tahiti Burning Sunset.”
Now dividing his time between the road, his house in the forest of Finland and extended forays into nature (he and his girlfriend live on a sailboat in the winter), Siljamäki took the music on an eight-date U.S. tour this past March, playing the new tracks to fellow dance fans in packed clubs. It was, he says, as medicinal for him as it was for them.
“I have a lot more tracks waiting to come out as well,” he says. “I’m going to keep P.O.S. as a vehicle where I can experiment, and hopefully this then leads to being a better part of the A&B team, creating fresh vibes for tracks with the guys.”
Here, Siljamäki discusses the project.
In the press release for this album you’re quoted saying that you weren’t even sure if you liked electronic music anymore. What was that like, that uncertainty?
It was really difficult for me. Most people that go through a full-on burnout — you almost turn your back and start, like, hating everything you’ve done. For me, it was almost like, “What if I don’t want to be a musician? What am I gonna do?” It’s like, an existential question. I really had to think about this, because I’ve made music since I was four years old. What if I feel like music has kind of let me down? What am I going to do?
What became your alternatives?
I actually looked at setting up a technology company, because I’m thinking we can look after the environment through technological innovation. I’ve been doing a lot of coding. I thought, “Maybe I’ll just run a technology company and make the world better that way.” But then then, over time, there were moments when my friends dragged me to a music studio. I was like, “I can’t bear it.” They were playing me loud music. And I was like, “Oh, but it feels good.”
What era are we talking about when you were really considering quitting?
2019 was probably my low moment. I was suffering. I was really depressed at the time. And then we obviously went straight into COVID on top of that.
You and I spoke in 2020 about how you’d been really sick with COVID. It was early on in the pandemic, so people still didn’t have a lot of information, and I don’t think a lot of people knew someone that had been sick, certainly not as sick as you were. But my understanding is that you then were sick again and again, and your burnout was compounded with a health crisis. Is that correct?
I’ve had COVID four times now. It’s become an annual reset. But out of all the struggle, a lot of really great stuff came, because now I’ve really found myself clubbing again, which I really hadn’t done for a long time. I’ve really found myself in nature. I’ve gotten into sailing. I’ve been together with my girlfriend now for two and a half years traveling the world together. Things have clicked into place. I still have a lot to resolve, I guess. But at least I’m really enjoying making music. Mentally I’m in a good space, so things are better now.
It’s interesting that you’ve found clubbing to be one of the antidotes. It seems perhaps a bit counterintuitive, when I think of health. I’m fascinated by this idea of how to sustainably grow up in the dance scene and take care of ourselves and do it in a way that doesn’t compromise your health. What are you finding there?
The thing I realized when I was first getting into clubbing was that I always felt like I didn’t fit in. I was a bit of a weirdo. And then I go clubbing, and I feel so accepted. It was kind of a safe space to just enjoy music and be yourself. Now that I’ve been going through all these things, it’s been really amazing for me to go to festivals. Especially when I was feeling like, “Oh, maybe if I didn’t make music…” Then I go clubbing and come out of a festival thinking like, “I do have something I want to say, something I want to do in the scene. I really, actually feel like I can contribute. There’s a reason for me to exist in this game we call dance music.”
What exactly was that reason?
I feel like what me solo, and [Above & Beyond] as a band do does something really nice in the clubbing scene. I’ve met so many people now on the dance floor. The Anjuna family and the culture, everything we’ve created — I’ve been at the receiving end of it on the dance floor, and it’s pretty awesome.
So you’re kind of feeling the impact of the work you do, and it’s having a positive effect on you that you can give that to other people?
I’ve felt the pressure sometimes. Let’s say I did think my days as a musician are done — then I feel responsibility to all those people. But now [I’m] actually going through that thing, and being really helped by a lot of people and clubbing and having fun with people.
I’m curious if like you’re finding certain pockets of the club world and the festival world that are resonating with you particularly heavily right now.
I’ve loved going to parties and hearing people play that I didn’t even know. One guy that was really amazing was DJ Tennis. We were at this festival in Miami and oh my god, he played such good stuff. I’ve always loved Hernan Cattaneo’s sets. I’ve also been really impressed by people when I didn’t even know who was playing. Tat’s also great.
So how does your P.O.S. fold into all of this? Why is now the right time for it?
When I was starting to fall in love with dance music again, I thought, “Okay, let me go and make some music.” The music was coming out, I was basically producing music where I didn’t initially feel like I could put it in an Above & Beyond set at EDC. It was deeper. For a little while, I was thinking, “This is a problem.” But then I thought, “Actually, why don’t I just make something and see what happens?”
Now that I’ve been making dance music for about two and a half years, it’s getting kind of tougher and more high-energy. It’s been really interesting to see how it’s changing. The P.O.S. music has been a totally free experimentation. I’ve done so much material and some of it I’ve come back to and thought, “There’s something really nice in this one, and this one, and this one isn’t good.” And from this, an album came out.
How was the tour?
That was like eight cities in 10 days, going back to these amazing clubs — small venues by the standard of what we do with Above & Beyond. Soundcheck in D.C. Coda in Toronto was amazing. Real nightclubs, where we started. It’s so personal. If you’re playing in arena, it’s a different kind of situation.
Certainly.
I went on the tour with about 35 tracks. People had heard maybe four or five of them before — so almost everything I was playing [during these two hours sets], people were hearing for the first time. It was really fascinating seeing what people responded to, because I get a totally raw, real response from people on the dancefloor. People respond differently to tracks they know, but when you’re hearing something for the first time, if it really works, it really really works.
What did you play that really, really worked?
There’s a track called “It’s Me” that we did with Spencer Brown and Marieme. We wrote it in L.A., and it’s been this instant there where it felt like people knew the track. There’s a track that’s not on the album called “Automatic” that slows down, and it’s almost a breakbeats thing. It has a big almost rollercoaster-y speed-up. That was always getting a cheer. “Let You Go” has been quite a big track, but it’s also been a big track because we had it on our [ABGT] radio show.
It’s just been nice playing these tracks and knowing people are getting goosebumps in there. It’s a different kind of response. It’s not like, hands in the air, but the feeling is great.
You sound really energized and excited. It’s wonderful to see that arc, because it sounds like your burnout was really brutal and long lasting.
It was. I’m not the only person going through those kinds of things on this planet, by any means. Hopefully there’s somebody [in the same position] I was three years ago reading this, and they can see that sometimes struggle can lead to new rediscoveries and alignments for one’s life.
When people have been doing something for a really long time, and they start looking at it thinking, “Is this really what I want to do?” I went looking for that question — and I found that, yeah, I really want to be a musician, and I really want to make dance music as well.
“Never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d walk along [that runway.] I saw Ariana Grande walk along there, and now it’s going to be me. We have to do that.”
So declared Four Tet in a video posted to Fred again..’s Instagram Sunday afternoon (April 23), hours before the pair — along with their frequent companion Skrillex – closed out Coachella 2023 with a mainstage performance as thrilling as it was both improbable and historic.
The trio secured the Sunday night slot only after weekend one’s Sunday night headliner, Frank Ocean, dropped out of weekend two following a leg injury and a controversial weekend one performance that, for many in the audience, fell flat. Ocean left behind not only an open set time, but an absurdly unlikely remnant – an ice-skating rink/satellite stage built for his weekend one performance that was never used, but connected to the main stage via the aforementioned runway.
It was there that Four Tet got his pop star moment, as he Skrillex and Fred again.. walked down it to the satellite stage in a side-by-side formation similar to Destiny’s Child’s segment from Beyoncé’s 2018 headlining show. The level of frenzy in the crowd as the guys made their way to the stage (which was circular, and sans ice) had a very frantic pop hysteria vibe, with people screaming for the trio of electronic music producers as if they were Kelly, Michelle and Bey, or the Backstreet Boys, or Grande herself.
It was the culmination of not only a wild week for the trio – whose addition to the Coachella lineup was first reported this past Thursday night — but also a pretty remarkable four months. The three producers representing different sounds and generations of electronic music are widely recognized to be among the best artists of their respective realm of dance music and are now also frequent collaborators and seemingly BFFS. They played their first show together at a club in London this past January, sold out Madison Square Garden in February and have now closed out Coachella, marking a landmark moment not only for them personally, but for dance music at the festival.
Upon their arrival to the satellite stage — where they played the entirety of their set — a beam of white light composed of roughly 20 lasers organized around the circle stretched far into the sky, as a siren sound blasted through the speakers, leading to peak anticipation. The hour and 15-minute set then launched with Skrillex’s “Leave Me Like This” from his February LP, Quest For Fire, which was blended with “Baby Again,” the latest in a list of cross-collaborations from the trio, and punctuated with the iconic “OH MY GOD” from Skrillex’s 2010 “Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites.”
Coachella’s hierarchical structure is one the festival’s most pronounced elements, with those in possession of VIP and artist wristbands typically getting the best real estate in front of the mainstage. Not so with this show! Instead, the guys played to the GA section surrounding their circular stage, while their faces were projected on the main stage big screens behind them. The main stage itself was populated by a bank of bright white lights, giving the whole scene a cinematic glow.
The set list took equally from each of the producer’s catalogs – including Four Tet’s “Baby,” Fred and Skrillex’s collaborative “Rumble,” Fred’s “Strong,” “Billie (Loving Arms),” Four Tet’s simply undeniable remix of Taylor Swift’s “Love Story,” the intro riff of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” melded with dubstep and long stretches of straightforward drum & bass, riddim and garage. It altogether formed what was arguably the weirdest, hardest, purest and most EDM-antithetical dance music played on the Coachella main stage since the festival’s early days, when acts like Chemical Brothers and Underworld topped the bill.
As it was with their MSG show in New York, the guys were clearly having a ball, also intermittently appearing sort of gobsmacked by the size of the audience before them – with this show certainly being among the largest any of them have ever played. Skrillex and Fred, dressed in black and white t-shirts, respectively, expressed their excitement about it all with a sort of boyish delight while dancing around on the decks. Meanwhile, Four Tet gave more satisfied dad energy while just walking around the stage in his green t-shirt and cargo shorts with a stunned look on his face.
And who could blame him? If you had said last year — or even last weekend — that Four Tet would close the Coachella mainstage, many people, maybe even Four Tet himself (born Kieran Hebden) — would have said it was impossible. The IDM pioneer, or “the grandmaster Four Tet” as Fred called him during the show, is one of the most well-respected electronic music producers of the last two-plus decades. But he has long been contained to Coachella’s smaller stages.
Last year it also would have been hard to predict a headlining set for Skrillex, who’s played Coachella Outdoor and Sahara Stages multiple times, but who up until this past February hadn’t released a new solo album in nine years. And while Fred’s breakout moment at Coachella 2022 basically functioned as a rocket launcher for his star-making last 12 months, few would have pinned him as a 2023 headliner.
But there they were, playing for the tens of thousands of people in the flesh and countless more watching around the world via livestream. The show felt like an exclamation point on this current moment of dance music, which feels ripe and rich with fresh energy, artists, sounds and fans.
During the EDM heyday, a headlining spot at Coachella was basically the gold standard of crossover success. Over the last few years dance music on the festival’s main stage has relied on stars of the EDM era, with Swedish House Mafia headlining last year and Calvin Harris closing the main stage on Saturday night (April 22). While Skrillex is certainly a peer of the latter two acts, what he’s doing with Fred and Four Tet feels more like the future of the genre than any sort of homage to past eras or hits as the lines between underground and commercial become blurrier and popular dance music becomes increasingly less reliant on pop structures. (And to be clear, we love those past hits, too.)
The last 20 minutes of the set were its best, with Skrilex winding up the crowd by starting, then stopping, then restarting, his recent Missy Elliot collaboration “RATATA” four or five times before letting it just play out as everyone danced — like really, truly raved. The guys then played Fisher’s new classic “Losin’ It,” subbing its tech house drop for bass music so heavy it could be felt rippling through the nervous system.
“We have three more” Fred said as the clock got closer to Coachella’s 12 a.m. sound curfew, and – incredibly, blissully unpretentiously – one of the songs they decided to close the show with was Miley Cyrus’ “Party in the U.S.A.” Fred then got on the mic to say the next song would be one he learned to play on the drums as a kid, then playing an edit of “Miss You,” by Blink-182, an homage to the band who’d played the main stage before the three producers took it over. The whole thing ended with a mix of Skrillex’s 2011 “Cinema” remix and Four Tet’s “Teenage Birdsong,” – which got the full Coachella climactic fireworks treatment.
Then it was over. Onstage the guys hugged each other a few times, Four Tet grabbed his tote bag, Fred put his backpack on, and they trio walked back down the runway — a bit like actual pop stars, but more like three dance music stars who deserved to be there as much as anyone else.
Tiësto has been riding a litany of major hits, which are now assembled together on his new album, Drive.
The project marks the seventh studio LP from the Dutch legend and includes the singles “The Motto,” “The Business,” “10:35,” “Lay Low” and “All Nighter.” Released steadily since 2021, these songs have been streamed more than two billion times on Spotify alone. (Three tracks from the album, “10:35” “Lay Low” and tk are currently on Hot Dance/Electronic Songs, at No. 6, No. 17 and No. 31, respectively.)
The album, Tiësto’s first concept LP since 2009’s Kaleidoscope, is designed to mimic the rhythm of a big night out and features a list of high-wattage collaborators including Charli XCX, Ava Max, Karol G, Tate McRae, Black Eyed Peas, A Boogie With Da Hoodie and more.
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“I am so beyond excited for this project to be out in the world!” the producer says in a statement. “This album is something anyone can enjoy on the dancefloor, in the gym, on a car ride, anywhere or anytime you are looking for incredible sonics and energy. Seeing how much everyone is loving the string of singles has been incredible, and it was amazing putting the full album all together.”
Drive essentially serves thesis statement of Tiësto’s crossover period, which comes roughly three decades after the artist born Tijs Verwest emerged out of his native Holland as one of the world’s best known and most beloved trance artists, even helping showcase that sound on a global stage when he played the opening ceremony of the 2004 Olympics in Athens.
Amidst the EDM boom, Tiësto began transitioning his sound to have more of a pop feel, an effort that elicited great success with crossover hits including 2018’s “Jackie Chan” (with Post Malone, Preme and Dzeko), along with an expanded audience of young dance music fans.
Tiësto’s summer schedule features festivals including Heatwave and Breakaway Carolina 2023, along with his residency at Las Vegas’ Zouk Nightclub and Ayu Dayclub.
Listen to Drive below.
The Coachella lineup changeups continue Skrillex, Four Tet and Fred again.. now joining the Southern California festival as weekend two Sunday night headliners, a source tells Billboard.
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This addition comes in the wake of Frank Ocean dropping out of the festival’s second weekend following a leg injury and a controversial weekend one performance, and Blink 182 also being added to the Sunday night main stage bill. (Last weekend the reunited punk trio played Coachella’s Sahara Tent on Friday night.)
Skrillex, Fred again.. and Four Tet will play the main stage on Sunday at 10:25 p.m. following an hour-long set from Blink-182. A representative for Coachella declined to comment on the addition.
Fred again.. teased this performance on his Instagram with a pair of fairly cryptic stories, one which read, “okay I can’t believe I’m saying this again, but does anyone know where Sonny [Skrillex] is” and another of him and Four Tet in a car with the caption “Unexpected journevsssssss [sic].”
Sources close to the festival add that the trio will play in the round on the satellite stage of the main stage, which was originally built to serve as an ice skating rink during the Frank Ocean set, but wasn’t used during the performance. (This satellite stage will not have ice on it this Sunday.)
This show will mark the trio’s first appearance together since their triumphant February 18 set at Madison Square Garden, which sold out the arena in two minutes. That five-hour show followed a series of pop-up performances by the trio in conjunction with Skrillex’s album Quest For Fire, which was released a day before the MSG show. Skrillex also released a second album, Don’t Get Too Close, during the MSG set, with the two new albums making his first full-length releases since 2014’s Recess. (The producer also teased what appear to be another three upcoming albums yesterday on social media.)
Skrillex, Fred again.. and Four Tet — the so-called Pangbourne House Mafia given their early recording sessions in Pangbourne, England — represent three generations of dance music, with this show marking another pinnacle moment for each artist. While each has previously played Coachella solo and amongst other projects — with Fred’s breakout year launching last April with a pair of massively well-received Coachella 2022 sets — this Sunday’s show will mark the biggest set they’ve done together thus far.
The trio have a flurry of collaborations together, including their most recent, “Baby Again” which is currently at No. 19 on Hot Dance/Electronic Songs.
Five years ago today (April 20), the world was rocked by the news of Avicii’s death. The producer, 28 years old at the time of his passing, died by suicide in Muscat, Oman. In the 24 hours following the news of his death, there were nearly four million Tweets mentioning “Avicii.”
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His legacy lives on. The message board on the official Avicii website is constantly populated with new notes regarding his impact. Messages posted today include “I miss you….. Thank you for everything…. And I will never ever forget you” to “Ur songs kept me alive from the age of 9 until now and forever” to “I always indulge in your songs when I am down. They give me positivity and bravery.”
Today on Twitter, artists and dance brands also commemorated the anniversary, with Afrojack writing “rip Avicii still play your music every show” and Defected Records posting “Forever in our hearts” with an image of the artist.
It’s an immeasurably difficult day for everyone who loved the artist born Tim Bergling and the music he made during his short but massively impactful run as dance music’s apex artist. There is perhaps some comfort to be found in this music, which is still played prolifically during festival and club sets and which, in a way, makes Avicii immortal.
These are our picks for the 15 best Avicii songs.
15. Avicii Feat. Joe Janiak, “Bad Reputation”
Taken from Avicii’s 2019 posthumous album, Tim, “Bad Reputation” uses waves of synth and an extremely catchy hook from singer Joe Janiak to forge an undeniable earworm with a drop made from slick marimba.
14. Avicii, “Street Dancer”
This 2011 tune isn’t as famous as some other Avicii songs. It only charted in the Netherlands, but it’s one of the producer’s most unique pieces to date. It’s got a harder edge than most of his compositions and a decidedly ’80s tropical tinge, like neon palm trees on a Miami Vice set. It samples Break Machine’s 1983 track “Street Dance,” which explains that retro flair. If you’ve never heard this deep cut, definitely give it a go.
13. Avicii, “True Believer”
Avicii reportedly made roughly 100 versions of this track from Stories, which features Coldplay’s Chris Martin on vocals for the chorus and reflects the leaner approach Avicii took on his 2015 LP.
12. Coldplay, “A Sky Full Of Stars”
While yes, officially a Coldplay song, “Sky Full Of Stars” was co-written and co-produced by Avicii for the band’s 2014 album, Ghost Stories. With a piano-rendered build/drop as buoyant and blissful as anything else he made during this prolific period, it’s rightfully included in the Avicii cannon.
11. Avicii Feat. Sebastian Drums, “My Feelings For You”
This track is a super disco inferno, hunk of burning dance floor glory. It might not have charted as strong as some other Avicii songs, but it’s definitely a crowd favorite. Even hipster DJs were dropping this one every week when it came out. Maybe that’s because it’s technically a remix of a song from French band Cassius and, you know, hipsters love French music.
10. Avicii Feat. Sandro Cavazza, “Without You”
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“Without You” arrives on Avicii’s six-track EP Av?ci (01) and sports a catchy melody with zippy synths reminiscent of his country-pop sound. The record features Swedish singer-songwriter Sandro Cavazza who Avicii also remixed and included on his EP.
9. Avicii Feat. Noonie Bao, “Fades Away”
One of the most haunting and memorable tracks on Tim — which was completed after Avicii’s death by a group of producers who’d been close to him — is its closing song, which features a tight drop made from a lush section and vocals from Swedish singer Noonie Bao querying “don’t you love it how it all, it all just fades away?” — lyrics penned by Bergling before his death.
8. Avicii, “Talk To Myself’
Stories-era Avicii found the artist paring down the massive EDM production that made him famous and leaning into the tighter, sort of cooler productions that define the 2015 album. Few do it better than “Talk To Myself,” which starts with a dark synth and spare disco strings before laying in rhythm guitar before expanding into an anthem that once again emphasizes his genius level understanding of melody.
7. Avicii, “Hey Brother”
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Avicii’s album True was really out to show the world just how inclusive dance music could be. You’ve never heard such glistening country pop as you have on True, and “Hey Brother” is one of the twangiest dance floor favorites to ever grace the festival circuit. Singer Dan Tyminski brings the heavy bluegrass element over Avicii’s four-on-the-floor and brightly glowing synths. Fair warning, the music video is liable to make you cry.
6. Tim Berg – “Seek Bromance”
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This classic jam is so old school that Avicii wasn’t even called Avicii when it was released — he was still known as Tim Berg. Yet, we all remember “Seek Bromance” as one of the best songs in Avicii’s catalog. It charted in 20 countries and reached number one on the Billboard Dance Clubs Songs list. Now six years after its release, you can hear how influential its been to every damn feel-good house song that came after.
5. Avicii, “Silhouettes”
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There’s something so undeniable about this pumping beat, this misty melody, and Swedish singer Salem Al Fakir’s smoky vocals. It just gives us a warm, cozy feeling listening to it. Maybe it’s also partially nostalgia for 2011 when everyone was first swept up in Avicii mania. This was one of those songs that, even if you acted like you didn’t like it at the time, you find yourself fist pumping to in no time.
4. Avicii Feat. Nicky Romero, “I Could Be The One”
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This hook became one of the most recognizable melodies of 2012 almost instantly. This song flickers between indulgently sweet and absolutely bangerific. Fun fact: the instrumental version once featured a sample of Justice‘s seminal anthem “D.A.N.C.E.,” though the sample was removed for the final version fans know and love. It was a total smash, charting in 22 countries and hitting four Billboard charts, peaking the US Dance Clubs list before it was finished.
3. Avicii, “Fade Into Darkness”
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While its easy to forget Avicii existed before “Levels” took over the whole world, “Fade Into Darkness” in fact predates that track. Listening to this tune today, one can hear a lot of Avicii’s country-western influence just beginning to bubble up to the surface. Replace the piano with acoustic guitar and this all time anthem could definitely be one of the cross-genre hits that define the artist’s later catalog.
2. Avicii, “Wake Me Up”
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The collective head-scratch moment that hit Ultra Music Festival in Miami when Avicii first debuted this song in 2013 is the stuff of dance world mythology, as no producer had ever even conceived of melding country music with electronic dance until Avicii showed artists the way.
1. Avicii, “Levels”
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12 years after its release, “Levels” remains one of the biggest dance music songs ever recorded and the defining anthem of the EDM era. The track introduced a new generation to Etta James, was a top ten hit in 15 countries and topped the charts in both Avicii’s homeland of Sweden and the United States. It still goes off when dropped at any given party or festival (which it still is, frequently.) “Levels” is timeless, it is universal, and it is quintessential Avicii.
David Guetta, Anne-Marie and Coi Leray leap onto Billboard’s multimetric Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart (dated April 22) with “Baby Don’t Hurt Me” at No. 8. The track starts with 2.5 million official streams, 1.4 million radio airplay impressions and 900 downloads sold in the April 7-13 tracking week, according to Luminate.
The reworking of Haddaway’s Eurodance classic “What Is Love,” which reached No. 11 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1993, amounts to Guetta’s 21st Hot Dance/Electronic Songs top 10, the fourth-most among all acts since the chart began in January 2013; Kygo leads with 24 top 10s, followed by Calvin Harris and The Chainsmokers, each with 22. “Hurt” is singer Anne-Marie’s second top 10 and rapper Leray’s first.
The debut also gives prolific DJ/producer Guetta a record-extending 76th charted title, the most of all acts. (Kygo is next, with 62.)
Concurrently, “Hurt” begins on the Dance/Electronic Digital Song Sales chart at No. 3.
The track traces the model of Guetta’s collab with Bebe Rexha, “I’m Good (Blue),” a reimagination of another Eurodance smash, Eiffel 65’s “Blue (Da Ba Dee),” a No. 6 Hot 100 hit in 2000. “Good” scores a 30th frame at No. 1 on Hot Dance/Electronic Songs, becoming only the fourth track to have logged 30 or more weeks on top, after Marshmello and Bastille’s “Happier” (69 weeks; 2018-20), Elton John and Dua Lipa’s “Cold Heart (Pnau Remix)” (36; 2021-22) and Zedd, Maren Morris and Grey’s “The Middle” (33; 2018).
‘Dancing’ to No. 1
Frank Walker and Ella Henderson ascend to the Dance/Mix Show Airplay summit with “I Go Dancing.” The first leader for both acts, among three and four top 10s, respectively, is drawing core-dance airplay on Music Choice’s Dance/EDM channel, KMVQ-HD2 San Francisco and WCPY (Dance Factory FM) Chicago, among other supporters.
It’s a busy week on Dance/Mix Show Airplay, with three tracks reaching the top 10. John Summit scores his third top 10 and Hayla, her second, with “Where You Are” (12-6); Kaleena Zanders earns her inaugural top 10 and Shift K3Y presses his second with “V I B R A T I O N” (15-8); and Duke and Jones draws their first top 10 and Marlhy, her second, with “State of Mind” (21-10).
(The Dance/Mix Show Airplay chart measures radio airplay on a select group of full-time dance stations, along with plays during mix shows on around 70 top 40-formatted reporters.)
‘Hammer’ Time
On the Top Dance/Electronic Albums chart, Brooklyn-based DJ/producer/singer Yaeji arrives at No. 9 with her first album, With a Hammer. The set arrives with 3,500 equivalent album units, including 2,600 from traditional album sales. With vocals in Korean and English, the release also hits World Albums (No. 13) and Heatseekers Albums (No. 18).
Yaeji is known for her underground hit “Raingurl,” from her five-track EP2. The short set hit No. 5 on the now-defunct sales-only Dance/Electronic Album Sales chart following its November 2017 release.
In Billboard’s monthly emerging dance artist spotlight we get to know Yunè Pinku, the 20-year-old artist building fantastical realms with her otherworldly voice and textured sonics.
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The Project: Babylon IX EP, out April 28 on Platoon
The Origin: Born and raised in London, Malaysian-Irish artist Yunè Pinku worked a number of odd jobs before becoming a musician — including, as she told The Line of Best Fit, as a bartender, and as an intern both at Prada and at a crystal shop. Though she had learned to play piano, she seemingly found her comfort zone at her computer, where she began carving out ambient soundscapes with downloaded production software. Soon after, she started writing songs inspired by bedroom pop and what she described as “Bladee-weird Drain Gang stuff.”
During lockdown, Pinku channeled the energy she missed from dance music and going out into her experimentations. “Then I tried adding vocals on top of that, which were originally just gonna be placeholders,” she tells Billboard. By the time restrictions were lifted, she had made over 150 songs.
Despite not having any official releases to her name, Pinku earned a big co-sign from U.K. stalwart Joy Orbison (with whom she worked in music sessions), who invited her to contribute a guest mix to his Radio 1 residency in July 2021. Two months later, she featured on Logic1000’s single “What You Like,” followed by her solo debut “Laylo” in November.
To start 2022, she found another big supporter in The Blessed Madonna, who named Pinku one to watch on her BBC Radio 6 New Year’s Day broadcast. Last April, she released her debut EP, Bluff, which led to billboard support from major streaming services and one of its tracks, “DC Rot,” landing on the FIFA 23 video-game soundtrack. (“My inner hooligan’s gassed,” she wrote on Instagram).
The Sound: Pinku has called her work “music for introverted ravers.” It juxtaposes electronic productions — an ever-evolving blend of U.K. garage, breakbeats, house, trance and more — with pop-structured songwriting to create a sound that’s animated enough for bedroom raving, yet mellow enough for introspective night drives.
But beneath the dance-y beats, a shadowy undercurrent runs through Pinku’s lyrics. Bluff, for instance, reflects the anxiety and angst of spending lockdown in isolation before re-learning how to navigate the outside world. Newer song “Night Light” takes the perspective of an AI searching for its maker.
“I would say I’ve got a default setting in my brain that’s quite existential,” she says. “A small thing could send me off into a doom scenario where I’ll be like, what’s the meaning of life, who are we? So I think it’s sort of these traces that come through.”
Part of Pinku’s strength is her use of textures, no doubt a remnant of her early soundscape sketches. Subtle sonics such as glittering synth constellations, the whirs of a machine powering up and softened glitches make her songs seem like they transcend the aural into the physical world.
“I’ve always really liked anything that sounds a bit twinkly or sparkly,” she says. “Textures are to me like 50% of a song, ‘cause you could have like a really good beat, but the textures and extra effects are how you make it interesting and more emotional.” Pinku even often treats her own otherworldly vocals as an instrument to blend and manipulate. But as she’s grown confident in her voice, she’s more open to bringing it closer to the forefront.
The Record: As Pinku was writing her new EP, she envisioned it taking place in a metaverse or cyber-realm — “So I thought, like, the idea of Babylon,” she says, “or like, the hanging gardens and cloud nine, where it’s these fantastical realms of existence.”
Pinku’s own fantastical realm took time to mold. Before Bluff, music had simply been a hobby. Post-release, she realized just how many eyes were on her. “There was like a five-month period where I literally couldn’t come up with any music, ‘cause I was like, ‘Oh god, they’re all gonna hate the music,’” she recalls. Then, during a breakthrough studio session in which she says she felt like she was “dying of hay fever,” she made two tracks in one day. One of those was recent single “Fai Fighter,” a bright, bouncy track which opens with an unhinged scream and features Pinku’s voice slicing through the air with its piercing whoops.
Whereas Bluff dons a shield of bravado and toughness, Pinku describes Babylon IX as being “gentler” and “more vulnerable on the lyrical side”: “This one is more about a delve into parts of desperation or being honest with yourself about yourself.” Her newest single, “Sports,” laments the idea of someone putting their screens before their IRL relationships over barraging drums and thunderous synths, while on opening track “Trinity,” she softly muses, “I never wanna be this lonely.” Additional tracks “Heartbeat” and “Blush Cut” bring out the EP’s dreamier, more delicate side with their crystalline production. It’s intimate yet vast, sad but sweet.
“Me and my friend were talking about it the other day,” Pinku says, “and we were saying [the EP sounds as] if a DJ was trying to summon a spirit on a mountain or something.”
Managed By: Emma Reid & Ferdy Hall, Outlier Artists
Management Strategy: “Our main aim managing Yunè has always been to make sure that this whole process remains not only fun and creative for her, but grows at a rate that she’s comfortable with,” say Reid and Hall. “This means saying ‘no’ to things is just as important as saying ‘yes.’ Growing her team independently via artist services company Platoon has allowed us the space and time to consider each step forward. Focusing on her long term ambitions rather than being preoccupied with short term trends that can often box in an artist’s growth rather than encourage it. This plays into our measurement for success, as long as we take a step forward with every move, then our plan and strategy is working.
“Her biggest strength as an artist,” they continue, “is the quantity of quality music she’s able to make fast and her ability to envision the world that should sit around her releases. All we need to do is lean into that and put the pieces around her to make sure it’s all coming to life.”
First Song That Made Her Love Dance Music: Pinku was not a dance music fan growing up, thinking it to be only the trance her mother played around the house, but lockdown led to a change of heart. When she left her Spotify running in the background, the algorithm’s resultant “clubby drums” breached her subconscious. Pinku specifically remembers hearing songs from New York-based artist Eartheater’s 2019 album Trinity during those run-ons:
“They’re like trappy, kind of electronic, weird, blend stuff,” she says. “It’s cool ‘cause it’s quite experimental. It’s a mix of multiple genres and it kind of made me think, club music and electronic are like a whole [spectrum], and not just this or that.”
Advice Every New Dance Artist Needs to Hear: “Don’t be afraid to experiment or get quite weird with it. It’s electronic: you have so much space and there’s no rules with it, really.”
Why She Makes Music: “I think it’s just something I just do regardless of if anyone was listening to it. To me, it’s like getting things out of your soul in a way, which sounds very deep, but it’s like a diary for me. You free yourself a bit when you put it into a song.”
Up Next: In Pinku’s words: “A lot of shows.” She embarks on the next leg of her U.K./European tour next month, and in June she’ll venture this side of the pond for her first U.S. live shows at Brooklyn’s Elsewhere (June 15) and Los Angeles’ El Cid (June 22). SoCal fans can catch her again at HARD Summer (Aug. 5).
The rest of 2023 isn’t all planes and stages, though. Pinku’s also thinking about her eventual debut album. “I always enjoy the early stage of putting a project together ‘cause you’re just throwing out ideas of what you want it to be,” she says. “So I’m still kind of in the early stage where I’m just making tracks here and there and seeing if there’s any sound overall that’s coming out clearly and then just tweaking away at them.”
Independent dance music label Armada Music said on Thursday it acquired the master recording rights of Detroit techno forefather Kevin Saunderson‘s KMS Records and Russian DJ ARTY to launch its new music investment fund focused on dance music.
The fund named BEAT–which stands for Best Ever Acquired Tracks–launches with $100 million in debt and financing from Pinnacle Financial Partners, which Armada says will be deployed over the next two years.
Launching into the redhot music IP investment market, Armada’s BEAT aims to capitalize on investments in a genre that has so far gotten less attention than others, like pop and classic rock.
A growing number of funds have launched in the past 18-months focused on genres like indie, Latin music and production music, aiming to use in-house expertise on a specific genre to find ways to make catalogs generate greater returns for the artists and rights holders.
“BEAT is in a unique position to add relevance to those tracks through creative additions, best practices in exploitation setup, and marketing methods and communication channels within the bigger (Armada) organization,” says Armada Music chief executive Maykel Piron.
BEAT says it is focused on acquiring catalogs that fall under the category of dance, including subgenres like techno, house, electronic dance music (EDM) and others. EDM alone is estimated to present a $9.5 billion market opportunity, growing to more than $20 billion in the next decade, according to a report by research firm Future Market Insights.
“We are seeing folks who are trying to be smarter, and one way to do that is to arbitrage certain genres,” says Matt Rosenberg, head of media finance at Monroe Capital. “It unlocks the investment ecosystem for more artists.”
Attached to Armada, BEAT will tap into the genre’s leading record label for “data on trends, creative resources, exploitation models (and) new artists,” Piron says.
“We are in a unique position in that we know everything on older catalogs since we have built one over the last 20 years through Armada,” Piron says. Armada has acquired catalogs from artists and dance labels, including Midtown Records, United Recordings and Combined Forces. “BEAT has 100% control over the exploitation and re-exploitation of the acquired catalogs.”
Saunderson made his name with a string of eight Top 10s between 1988-94, including “Good Life,” “Big Fun,” “Ain’t Nobody Better” and “Do You Love What You Feel” and others. The catalog of KMS, which Saunderson helped found over 30 years ago, includes Saunderson’s “Good Life” and “Big Fun,” recorded with Inner City.
“In the post-COVID period, we are seeing a huge revival of 90’s dance. Sometimes younger audiences don’t even realize they are dancing to 30-year-old tracks,” Piron says.
With a catalog of newer hits, ARTY is known for dance tracks “Sunrise,” “Save Me Tonight,” “Craving” and “Take Your Time” from between 2018 and 2021. Based in Los Angeles, ARTY has also produced and remixed songs for Skrillex, Armin van Buuren, Halsey and others.
Memento Mori, the name of Depeche Mode’s latest album and current world tour, means “remember you must die” in Latin — a fitting enough title considering that the long-running band has been reduced to a duo following last year’s death of co-founder Andy Fletcher.
But Dave Gahan and Martin Gore, whose sublime synth-pop has been fueled by pessimism and darkness for decades, bristled with vitality while facing mortality head-on during a Friday night (April 14) show at New York City’s Madison Square Garden.
From a bedazzled skull spinning on a video screen during classic Violator cut “Enjoy the Silence” to Gore’s harrowing lead vocal on “Soul With Me” (a quiet ballad on the new album which finds him gently preparing for the hereafter), the Reaper might as well be the silent third member of the band; even so, there’s nothing grim about what Depeche Mode delivers in 2023.
Gahan seemed tapped into a supernatural energy throughout the evening, twirling and prowling about the stage like a sensual, vampiric Elvis, wiggling his hips one moment and spreading his arms like the demon perched atop Bald Mountain in Fantasia the next. Vocally, there was no faulting him — from the high notes he trotted out on “Precious” to the grit he brought to “John the Revelator,” Gahan’s voice remains an inexhaustible treasure. And on “World in My Eyes,” the evening’s explicit tribute to Fletcher, Gahan’s delivery felt especially resonant.
Depeche Mode is hardly the first band to solider on following the death of a core member. But while most bands in a similar position tend to isolate their onstage mourning, performing one poignant tribute song before pivoting back to a high-octane set, DM’s entire Memento Mori concert felt like a meditation on the inevitable end that awaits us all. Which isn’t to say the concert was in any way depressing — if anything, the band’s brush with the undiscovered country has left it focused and present. “Remember you must die” is a phrase that might lead some to despair, but for Depeche Mode, it’s seemingly a catalyst to make every moment count.
The return of two highly popular dance artists has created new headaches for promoters dealing with increased public outcry over ticket scalping. Skrillex’s first show in nine years at the iconic Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Morrison, Colorado, and Pretty Lights’ comeback tour after a five-year absence have created supply and demand issues not often seen in the amphitheater and club space. That’s meant new challenges with how to deal with resellers buying tickets en masse and posting them online for profit.
Earlier this week, AEG Presents announced plans to reclaim tickets purchased by scalpers for a sold-out April 29 show by Skrillex at Red Rocks and resell them to fans through the Fair AXS ticketing platform, AEG’s own fan verification. Fair AXS requires fans to register in advance for high demand tickets, and like Ticketmaster’s Verified Fan platform, is designed to weed out scalpers.
The company is now weighing whether a similar plan to claw back tickets for the upcoming, sold-out Pretty Lights tour that kicks off Aug. 6 at the Mission Ballroom in Denver and sell those to fans through Fair AXS.
With the Skrillex concert, says AEG Presents co-president and senior talent buyer Don Strausberg, when the company scraped the sales data, it found instances of buyers who bought multiple tickets, exceeding the four-ticket limit on purchases and violated the terms of service for AEG-owned ticketing system AXS tickets. Those ticket purchases were then canceled, refunded to the originally buyer and put back on sale through the Fair AXS platform, a registration-based identity-verification system that helps concert promoters determine the likelihood that a ticket purchaser is a legitimate fan and not a ticket broker. (This verification system was recently utilized by Zach Bryan for his 2023 tour and requires fans to register in advance and provide their credit card information.) Strausberg says AEG is now considering whether to do the same for the Peaking Lights tour.
Strausberg didn’t identify how many Skrillex tickets were pulled back and sold through Fair AXS, but noted that demand for the April 29 show far exceeded supply at the world-famous 9,545-capacity venue.
“It’s time consuming,” to comb through all of the sales, and requires additional steps by both AEG and fans to register in advance for Fair AXS and to verify the accounts, Strausberg says, “but lately more people are asking for this.” Trying to identify individuals who violated AXS’s terms or service is “something we do without fail on nearly every large concert” says Strausberg, although the scale of unauthorized activity happening with the Skrillex show was larger than normal.
Scalping exists at every level of the concert business, but it’s much rarer to see high volume ticket scalping at smaller capacity venues like those on the Pretty Lights tour, where the artist is playing 3,500-size rooms. AXS ticketed 18 of the 24 shows on the Pretty Lights tour, totaling about 60,000 tickets total.
Lately, ticketing companies like Ticketmaster and AXS have become more effective at reducing the number of tickets that end up on the secondary market. That’s pushed some brokers into smaller capacity events, says a secondary market analyst who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “There’s much less opportunity at the club and theater level,” they add, where the majority of shows don’t sell completely sell out.