Avicii

Could single-handedly kill hip-hop.

You know, the calcified art form that's all imitation and no innovation.

The very first thing that crosses your mind as you listen to Avicii's "True" is...how did he come up with this stuff?

We live in a world where white kids in Canada employ gang signs. Everybody's a follower and no one's testing limits and pointing the way. Until Avicii takes the stage at Ultra and leaves the audience with its mouth agape, like "Springtime For Hitler" in "The Producers."

Dan Tyminski has been hiding in plain sight ever since "O Brother." His "Man Of Constant Sorrow" was so satisfying, one of not only the best tracks of the year, but the most memorable. But did anybody capitalize on his talent? Did a label push him? Of course not, they just want ten year olds working with alta-kachers, believing that's the only way to make the cash register ring.

But the real way to make money rain down is to do something completely different and wholly satisfying, something that makes you feel good just to listen to it. Like Avicii's work with Tyminski, "Hey Brother."

Oh, listen to that acoustic guitar, an instrument banished from Top Forty radio, despite populating seemingly everybody's closet.

And then comes Dan's voice. So human. Not thin, sans melisma it takes you right back to the hollers of Appalachia. And he seems to be singing for the joy of it, not to impress you.

And then the bass starts to pump. It's like listening to the Band, if Levon Helm were still alive and they cut new music.

Oh, eventually the electronics come in, but the chorus is not dominated by them, you hear the oo's and you just want to sing along. As your head starts to nod and your body jumps with the following sounds. Yes, it's EDM, for people who've been saying it's mindless drivel. Because it's not! Yup, while you were home deploring the new sound, repeating yourself, poorly, Avicii was pushing the envelope.

And when the whole track breaks down and gets quiet again just after 2:20 it's so intimate, it's the essence of music.

This is the album track for those who lament the passage of such. Not filler, not made for the radio, it's made just for you, listening at home.

And the follow-up, "Addicted To You," is even better!

You know the Top Forty, everybody's oversinging, believing they can close you by overwhelming you. Not that the vocal here is subtle, but it is savory and sensual. It sounds like a combination of Shirley Bassey, Adele and electronica. "Addicted To You" just makes you feel warm and alive, and isn't that what music’s supposed to do, reflect the human condition?

Listen to that acoustic picking at the beginning of "Addicted To You," it sounds just like the first American Elton John album. You remember "First Episode At Hienton" and "Sixty Years On," right? Oh, the hits made Elton famous, but it was these album cuts that gave him a career, and somehow Avicii has extracted this same magic, albeit from a new, slightly different mine.

I'm not gonna say the rest of the album reaches these stratospheric peaks, other than the opening cut and already worldwide hit "Wake Me Up." It seems like Avicii was just a bit gun-shy, afraid of going all in, there's stuff that's more EDM than traditional song, then again, everything resonates.

In other words, if you go to the electronic show to get high and hang with your buds, get ready for a whole new world, where you need to get right up front and sing along while you dance. Because there's nothing more fulfilling, nothing more exciting than becoming one with the music as it pours out of the speakers and you lift your head to the sky and sing along.

Forget all the reviews. Most in the "B" territory. They miss the point.

There's no scale for excellence. There's no framework to judge. When someone is inventing something new, stretching both themselves and the audience, the usual suspects are unprepared.

But the listener is always ready.

Play this alone, at home. You'll have a party in your head.

Play it with your buddies and you'll be so glad you're a music fan, knowing that no other art form equals the sensation you get when you experience it.

Once upon a time music blew up because it was all about the bleeding edge. We were all caught up in the slipstream. We were all agog. Long before it became about how you looked and making a mini-movie to become rich and famous. You don't need to know what Avicii looks like to get "True." As for Dan Tyminski... You won't see him in GQ, but this is the kind of guy girls fall in love with...you know, he who's got something on the inside as opposed to the nitwits who are all flash and no substance.

LISTEN!

P.S. Rock's already dead.

Spotify link: http://spoti.fi/16sho0W


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