“Shame on Me” is swing music, more or less, and a less successful hybrid than Avicii’s roots experiments.Ĭompared with “Wake Me Up” and “Hey Brother,” the rest of “True” doesn’t offer much challenge, even if it is thoroughly effective in places. “Heart Upon My Sleeve,” which features vocals from Dan Reynolds of the alt-rock preservers Imagine Dragons, opens up like an acoustic Queensryche song. That Avicii is testing himself, and his public, is clear. (Along with the selections of his manager, Ash Pournouri, who receives a writing credit on almost every song on this album.) Marry that to the recent impulse among a certain more classicist stripe of dance-music act to bring the genre back to organic roots - Daft Punk’s last album repudiates the last couple of decades of computer music - and Avicii’s musical choices feel savvy and timely. (And yes, there was disco-country in the 1970s, for what it’s worth.) And that’s to say nothing of the emergent trend of club remixes of country hits by the likes of Dee Jay Silver and DJ DU. Even Keith Urban has a fake club song on his new album. They sit comfortably next to the king-size crossover country and folk of recent years - think Mumford & Sons, or the dubstep song on the last Taylor Swift album. (How much of a risk is it to use the main voice from an album, the “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” soundtrack, that has sold over seven million copies in the United States?)Įven though they’re unexpected twists in Avicii’s otherwise clean ascent, these songs don’t arrive in a vacuum. That is the subtext of the guitar-laden stomper “Wake Me Up,” already another huge hit that undermines American centrality in global pop, and especially the unexpectedly lovely “Hey Brother,” which features the keening vocals of Mr. I’m sure someone would have screamed “Judas!” if they’d gotten the joke.īut don’t see “True” as the album in which dance music imports the sounds of the American heartland into the club in hopes of digging up new audiences, or even new ideas see it as the one in which country takes its place front and center in global pop. At least it did until the Ultra Music Festival in March, when Avicii turned his high-profile set into a roots jam session, to the befuddlement of almost everyone, and the outright anger of many. Into that environment arrives Avicii’s full-length debut album, “True” (PRMD/Island), which, thanks to the success of “Levels,” has the whiff of a fait accompli about it. D.J.-producers like Calvin Harris, by working with superstars like Rihanna, are beginning to gain a dollop of the respect they garner elsewhere. At least in this country, American sonic imperialism still works.īut a lot has changed since “Levels.” Dance music is becoming normalized, even here, and has been seeping into other genres, from traditional pop to R&B. The original album's "Heart Upon My Sleeve" isn't remixed, although everything else is here and pumped up splendidly, so consider this a worthy alternative to True made for dancing or, seeing as how many Avicii regulars were thrown by the original's acoustic atmosphere, consider this a fan-pleasing release that plays to the producer's strengths.Two years ago the Swedish D.J., producer and denim model Avicii released “Levels,” a clangorous and joyful club anthem that was a global hit so vast that it reinforced the fact that the United States isn’t really the center of global pop, at least not the way it once was.Īmerica has no real radio infrastructure for dance music, which means even a song like “Levels” has little hope of moving beyond the Electric Daisy Carnival circuit and into the broader pop consciousness, although everywhere else that’s exactly where it resided. With the hypnotic and bright Grammy-nominated track "Levels," Swedish EDM DJ/producer Tim Bergling aka Avicii unleashed a global dance hit the size of "Beachball," "Blue Monday," "Starships," and maybe even "The Hokey Pokey." If the masses leave the dancefloor, "Levels" brings them back with sunshine and light, but Avicii's debut album True was a sharp left turn, kicking off with the acoustic guitar strum of "Wake Me Up," a pleasant, well-written heritage pop track where "I Need a Dollar" vocalist Aloe Blacc gets thrown in a synthetic Mumford & Sons surrounding for something that was very non-"Levels." The rest of the album was equally and shockingly rustic and organic, but here, on this full-album remix of True, "Wake Me Up" is given a "Levels"-styled, synthetic kick and returns to the category of prime-time dancefloor stuff, while "Hey Brother" with vocalist Dan Tyminski trades its bluegrass for dubstep and the bass drops ensue.
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