They were just weird-looking guys in a Run-DMC video to me. I hope to live long enough to be the weird-looking guy in some up-and-coming rock video one day. | | | | Leveling up: Avicii at Roseland Ballroom, New York, Oct. 10, 2013.
(Kevin Mazur/WireImage/Getty Images) | | | | |  | “They were just weird-looking guys in a Run-DMC video to me. I hope to live long enough to be the weird-looking guy in some up-and-coming rock video one day.”
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| | rantnrave:// TIM BERGLING, better known as AVICII, made anthemic, escapist, almost heroic, dance-pop with an ease that bordered on grace. Does EDM get more energizing, or more inevitable, than this? And then he plotted his own almost heroic escape, quitting the road at the peak of his fame. INC. MAGAZINE had just named him the sixth fastest-growing company in EUROPE (I am not making that up) when he announced, in 2016, that he would no longer perform live. Facing health problems from hard touring and excessive drinking, he retreated to what he presumably envisioned as a peaceful life in the studio, living the life of an EDM elder statesman and master producer in his mid-20s. A shocking, sudden ending came on Friday, at age 28. We know little about his death except that authorities say there is no "criminal suspicion." He leaves behind a remarkably low profile for a pop star as big as he was, and a string of tracks and videos, both on his own and in collaboration with artists from DAVID GUETTA to RITA ORA to COLDPLAY, that do a great job of describing a particular strain of 2010s pop music. One of his biggest hits was this country- and folk-influenced single featuring ALOE BLACC that was booed by Avicii's own audience when he introduced it at ULTRA in MIAMI. It may have seemed strange at the time, but the idea of willfully hopping across genre boundaries and mixing and matching styles has always been an essential part of pop. It's how can pop can move sideways and forward at the same time. Some crossover stars are coy about it. Others, like Avicii, are brazen and maybe a little cocky. "Obviously the audience—hopefully even some haters—have really come around," he said a few months later. "It's important to believe in what you do." RIP. MusicSET: "Avicii: The DJ Who Took EDM to New 'Levels'"... COACHELLA pays its respects to Avicii, who headlined the fest's EDM stage in 2012... He left behind his completed third album. "We’ll try to get some advice from the family and... do what we think Tim would want us to do," said GEFFEN RECORDS president NEIL JACOBSON, who worked with Avicii for several years... Woah, where did this PRINCE discography site come from? (OK, we know; see story mix below. But the point is: Wow)... R. KELLY's entertainment lawyer, exec assistant and publicist have all jumped ship. R. Kelly is still signed to RCA RECORDS... Congrats to my old MTV colleague NICK LEHMAN, who joins ASCAP as EVP and chief strategy and digital officer... HEARTBREAKERS MIKE CAMPBELL, BENMONT TENCH and STEVE FERRONE, playing together for the first time since TOM PETTY's death, backed BECK, PATTI SMITH and STEPHEN STILLS at the LIGHT UP THE BLUES autism benefit Saturday in Los Angeles... BEYONCÉ fell down. And there was evening and there was morning, the second weekend of Coachella. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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 | REDEF |
| Avicii made anthemic, escapist dance-pop with an ease that bordered on grace. And then he plotted his own escape, quitting the road at the peak of his fame. Remembering an EDM superstar whose flame burned out way too soon. | | |
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 | Loudwire |
| Foo Fighters, Tool and System of a Down are among the major bands playing summer festivals that are a bit off the mainstream music media's radar. | | |
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 | The New York Times |
| Using voice memos, demos, texts and interviews, we reconstruct the wild ride of how Zedd, Maren Morris and a 23-year-old songwriter turned a few chords into an enormous hit. | | |
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 | The New Yorker |
| Everyone knows that there are many causes behind London’s contagion of stabbings, but that doesn’t stop people from blaming an angry, slang-ridden form of hip-hop called drill. | | |
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 | British GQ |
| Haven't you heard? Rock is dead. So why can't we find a single record we don't like? | | |
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 | Los Angeles Times |
| With the first rock concerts at the Forum in Inglewood and New York's Madison Square Garden, the stages were set in 1968 for the dawn of arena rock, a new concert genre that took off when Cream had the distinction of being the first band to play both mega venues. | | |
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 | Watt |
| Artists are shaking up the festival circuit with a more homegrown offering drawn from their friendship and fandom. | | |
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 | The New Statesman |
| For women in music, being described most of the time by men is just par for the course. | | |
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 | The Ringer |
| The two hip-hop superstars are both releasing new albums in June, but Kanye may not be able to stop the monster he helped create. | | |
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 | Hackernoon |
| How did I not know about a new Manic Street Preachers until four days after its release? Part user error. Part product shortcomings. | | |
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 | Billboard |
| Create Music Group (CMG) has grown from a YouTube collection specialist into a profitable 75-employee force with tentacles in a range of overlooked opportunities in the music business, from mixtape monetization to video-content creation beyond official music videos. | | |
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| Los Angeles Times |
| It may have been Beychella Part 2, but not everyone was a fan. | | |
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 | The Guardian |
| She recorded the bestselling album ever made by a woman, but later disappeared from the limelight. She talks about the violent childhood and devastating divorce that make her pop’s great survivor. | | |
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 | Gizmodo |
| Last week a nerdier segment of the music world was abuzz with the news that an Austrian company Rebeat had taken a $4.8 million dollar investment to help bring its "HD vinyl" records to market by mid 2019. Huh? HD vinyl? How does one make the last analog music storage format (that people still care about) high-definition? | | |
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 | Variety |
| This is only the beginning: The site hints broadly that it will house some of the “mind-blowing” unreleased music that advisor Troy Carter told Variety in January will be “coming soon." | | |
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 | Fact Magazine |
| Hands-on with Nintendo's latest innovation. | | |
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 | The Daily Beast |
| Maria Alyokhina, just out of jail—again—speaks to The Daily Beast about Russia’s recent attempts to ban the Telegram message app, and Putin’s long record of repression. | | |
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 | The Illusion of More |
| This case has such an unusual fact pattern that it may not be quite the precedent many fear. | | |
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 | Rolling Stone |
| "What is this thing if you don't come at it with everything?" says singer-guitarist-songwriter David Le'aupepe. | | |
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 | Slate |
| "He would tell some pretty funny stories. But he’d have to keep them a little PG. Then I’d confer back with my mom and she’d be like, yeah, he’s left out some parts for that one." | | |
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 | YouTube |
| | | | Avicii ft. Sandro Cavazza |
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