There's no mistaking the impact that Swedish DJ Avicii (Tim Bergling) has had on the EDM and house genres in recent years. Several of his early hits, namely "Levels", "Silhouettes" and the Nicky Romero-assisted "I Could Be the One", helped cement Avicii's reputation as one of the genre's best and most progressive DJ's of the early 2010's during the genre's revival. Since then, his work hasThere's no mistaking the impact that Swedish DJ Avicii (Tim Bergling) has had on the EDM and house genres in recent years. Several of his early hits, namely "Levels", "Silhouettes" and the Nicky Romero-assisted "I Could Be the One", helped cement Avicii's reputation as one of the genre's best and most progressive DJ's of the early 2010's during the genre's revival. Since then, his work has seen varying degrees of both commercial and critical success, with his debut album, the folk-inspired "True", receiving both positivity and negativity by fans, critics, and fellow artists alike in almost equal measure. "The Days/Nights EP" also divided opinion, with the Robbie Williams-fronted "The Days" coming under scrutiny for sounding too similar to "Hey Brother". "The Nights" however, was regarded as being one of Avicii's best releases to date. Both of these tracks only feature on specific editions of the album, and do not feature on the standard edition. This latest full-length album, "Stories" is only Avicii's second album and is his first since 2013.
The album itself is a further deviation from the sound of his early releases, incorporating many new elements such as jazz and reggae, as well as leaning towards more organic instrumentation used during EDM's infancy in the 1980's and early 1990's. While most of these endeavours are highly admirable and do contain quite a number of interesting ideas, many don't seem to live up to their potential. One of the few ideas that does seem to work is the jazz-esque piano riff on "For a Better Day", as well as the reggae-influenced acoustic guitar on "Can't Catch Me". More common EDM sounds come in the form of lead single, and album opener "Waiting for Love". "True Believer" also goes in this direction, but has an exceedingly annoying vocoder vocal line. "City Lights" also makes terrible use of vocoders on the vocals, and at six and a half minutes, borders on insufferable by the end of the song. However, the biggest problem with this album without question is the production. Many of the album's fourteen tracks lack any sort of dynamics, despite the different styles explored on the album, and it make most of the album feel bland, for want of a better word. Even with Avicii himself saying he took a more "song-orientated" approach to writing than a club-orientated one, it adds very little to the quality of the album. The songwriting can be called into question also, as "seventy songs" were written during the recording sessions, which leads to a classic case of quantity over quality, and it shows in many places. Unfortunately, the two best songs on this album - "Waiting for Love" and "For a Better Day" were BOTH released as singles. In this regard, "Stories" and "True" do have one major similarly between them - both of these albums best songs have ALL been released as singles.
Overall, while "Stories" does display greater experimentation than anything that Avicii has released before, for which he must be commended, the very poor vocal performances, the bland production and the lack of dynamics prove that Avicii's unique style and that of EDM in general has one major flaw - there is only so far that EDM, as a whole, can progress. This album then, is more symbolic than just being an experimental project gone wrong - it symbolizes that EDM, while it currently remains hugely successful commercially, is experiencing a huge decline in quality overall. It seems strangely fitting that the man who helped spearhead the genre's revival little over five years ago, should release the album that marks the end of its golden era.
Album Highlights - "Waiting for Love" and "For a Better Day".… Expand
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