- Born Tim Bergling, in Sweden, 1989. Died on April 20, 2018, in Oman. Cause of death was suicide due to injuries with a broken wine bottle, leading to his death due to blood loss.
- The stagename Avicii means “the lowest level of Buddhist hell.” While his earliest work used his given name, he changed it when he tried to set up a MySpace page, and Tim Bergling was already taken.
- Avicii’s work as a DJ started as a teenager. His remixes started to reach hit status in 2010. Much of his work has been released as singles while not part of an album, common with DJ/remixers. That said, he does have 2 studio albums – True from 2013 and Stories from 2015. The songs on these albums and many of the singles were written by Avicii with various co-writers. For example, his biggest hit, Levels, includes a co-writer credit for Etta James, because it includes a vocal sample of James’ 1962 song Something’s Got A Hold On Me (James died less than 6 months after Avicii’s song was released, at age 73). A new album is expected to be released in 2017.
- Avicii has been prolific at making remixes of other artists’ work, moving those works into Electronic Dance Music (EDM) space. His success has led to accolades in his field – he was recognized as a top ten DJ from 2011 to 2015, and last year was rated #11, by DJ Mag.
- Touring for DJs is all about playing their remixes at festivals and nightclubs. Avicii announced in March 2016 that he was finished with touring due to health concerns. He has had acute pancreatitis (partially due to heavy alcohol consumption), and has had his gallbladder and appendix removed.
- He has been nominated twice for Grammy Awards – once for Levels and once for his collaboration with David Guetta, Sunshine – but he has yet to win an award.
- One way to tell if an artist is popular is YouTube views. I guess Avicii is popular – Wake Me Up has over 2.1 BILLION views since its release in July 2015. Click below to add 1 to that number.