When Avicii cheated the record companies with “Levels”.

Genius, but also recklessness. Avicii was this. A musician gifted with enormous compositional talent: «Timeless music. That’s what I’m trying to do. For me music has always been about melodies. They are melodies that date back hundreds of years, which return in different forms and modalities», said the Swedish DJ, who died prematurely in 2018 at just 28 years old (his lifeless body was found in a hotel room in Oman, where he was on holiday with some friends – the autopsy confirmed that the death was not to be considered suspicious and the US gossip site TMZ revealed that the musician committed suicide), in an old interview given at the beginning of his extraordinary career.

But despite having found himself immersed in the waters of the music business almost unconsciously, when in 2010 “Bromance” exploded in his hands and led him to perform behind the decks of the biggest international festivals, Tim Bergling – this is his real name -.he immediately learned to swim among sharks. And to develop the skills necessary to survive. In the Netflix documentary just released on the streaming platform,”Avicii – I’m Tim”, wanted by his family (who following his death established a foundation named after him with the aim of providing young people with psychological assistance and fighting suicides), there is a funny anecdote linked to the genesis and success of one of the most great hits signed by the Swedish DJ, that “Levels” than today on Spotify it has over 1 billion streamsresonates in stadiums all over the world and continues to unleash millions of girls and boys on the stages of major festivals. A sensational success, however born from a real bluff.

The bluff is the one Avicii gave to Universal record producer Per Sundinold fox of the Scandinavian record industry already behind the successes of the Swedish House Mafia and those linked to the ABBA catalog (an enlightened man: he was the first manager of a record company to open dialogue with Spotify), who had begun to carefully monitor the DJ Swedish. Sundin himself tells the story, in a scene from Henrick Burman’s documentary which retraces the human and artistic parable of the late DJ who left Stockholm to conquer stages around the world. Avicii had already racked up a handful of hits, including “Bromance” itself, when he composed “Levels” in 2011. He sampled and reworked in an EDM key an old rhythm and blues song recorded fifty years earlier, in 1962, by Etta James, entitled “Something’s got a hold on me”, which the previous year Christina Aguilera had reinterpreted in the film “Burlesque”.

A courageous and interesting operationwhich Avicii and his manager at the time, Ash Pournouri, believed in very much. And in which Sundin also believed very much, when he listened to the audition of the song for the first time: «I said to Ash: “That piece must be mine”. Then he called me back and said: “The fact is that Virgin also wants it and is willing to pay 500 thousand euros for the song”.

I replied: “What? 500 thousand euros?”. I spent 5 thousand on “Bromance”. And he: “I understand, but we worked a lot on it and there’s a lot of planning behind it.” I hung up. But by then I had already started pitching Avicii to my contacts at Universal, so I had to call them back to tell them we weren’t going to take him because that price was too high. But they said to me: “.Come up with something, we absolutely can’t miss a hit like that”. So I called Ash back a few days later: “Can we reach an agreement?”. And he: “Of course, but the price is 500 thousand”. I gave them to him.” But things weren’t exactly like that.

Avicii, in fact, had not received any offers from Virgin. Sundin only discovered this when the papers had already been signed and Avicii and his manager had already pocketed the 500 thousand euros of the agreement. «I asked him: “Why did you do it? You had no offers.” And he said: “I had to raise the price. It was the price we wanted. I don’t think I harmed your career”». He was right, because within six weeks, a month and a half, Universal recovered the entire sum spent thanks to the sales and success of “Levels”..