LOS ANGELES (Top40 Charts) Global superstar DJ Avicii's long awaited new album STORIES is out next Friday, October 2 on PRMD Music/Island Records.
Avicii collaborated with some of music's most distinctive singers/songwriters on STORIES, including Chris Martin, Alex Ebert, Matisyahu, Wyclef Jean, Zac Brown, Zak Abel, and more. STORIES is available for pre-order now.
Produced by Avicii, aka Tim Bergling, STORIES features 14 original songs on which he worked for two years to push himself genre-wise and maintain his commitment to crafting undeniably catchy melodies and personal themes. The result is music that is grounded in its vision and surefooted in its artistry."All the songs have a story I wanted to tell, says the 2x Grammy-nominated producer/songwriter/DJ.
The new music on STORIES is informed by Bergling's experiences since the release of his genre-busting, multi-platinum debut TRUE; experiences which vary radically from the elation of playing for 80,000 hometown fans in Stockholm and selling 500,000 tickets on his TRUE Tour to having an illness that necessitated the cancellation of a year's worth of tour dates. Rather than making a total departure from TRUE, STORIES builds on it.
Bergling says the album "refines what I didn't feel was perfect last time. I think there are more layers to the songs than before, and every song has been written on acoustic guitar, so the structure is different."
Avicii's STORIES is rich and varied, with melodies that carry the listener on a roller coaster of emotions. He characterizes the lyrics on a track with
Matisyahu and
Wyclef Jean as 'an old school reggae protest song.' He teased "
Broken Arrows" with the 'amazing voice' of Zac Brown on his monthly Le7els podcast. The album also includes the single "Waiting for Love," which was #1 in 22 countries and features the powerful vocals of UK-based artist Cherry Ghost, aka
Simon Aldred.
Avicii ties in his own 'story' paying homage to his hometown on the dreamy pop song "Somewhere In Stockholm," giving the album a strong, personal reference point. The enormity of the success of TRUE gave him the freedom to be able to make rock songs and ballads, and explore reggae, blues, and jazz, and he's made the most of that freedom on STORIES.
"Yes it's a challenge," he says, "but it's also a lot of fun."
About Avicii:
In 2011,
Avicii reached critical mass with the global success of "Le7els," which became a No. 1 dance hit in the U.S. and the U.K. and sold four million tracks worldwide. It topped the charts in six other territories, went top 10 in many more, and garnered Bergling his second Grammy nomination. Other hits brought a much-publicized remix of Madonna's "Girl Gone Wild." In 2013,
Avicii won his first American
Music Award (for Favorite Electronic Dance
Music Artist) and his first MTV
Europe Music Award (EMA) (for Best Electronic Artist).
In 2014
Avicii cemented his place in the firmament of superstar recording artist/DJ's with the success of his genre-defying debut album, True, on PRMD Records. The album not only satisfied the 26-year-old Swede's restless creative urge to push musical boundaries, it also upped the ante on what dance music could be by blending the earthy sounds of folk, country, and bluegrass with soaring pop melodies, funky disco jams, and driving house beats. True spawned the 4x-platinum guitar-laden stomper "Wake Me Up," which hit No. 1 in 81 countries and became the most streamed song of all time on Spotify (over 300 million plays) and the No. 1 most Shazamed song worldwide, while racking up 2.6 billion international streams and 600 million combined YouTube views. Upon True's release, The New York Times heralded
Avicii as "an artist carrying today — and tomorrow — on his shoulders."
In May,
Avicii and Volvo Cars, two of Sweden's most influential brands, launched their collaboration on a new brand campaign which features Avicii's reworking of the classic song
Feeling Good. The music video for
Feeling Good was filmed on location in Stockholm and Osterlen, southern Sweden in places of personal significance for
Avicii and tells his own story of renewal, following several years of hard touring.
