The Electronic Dance Music DJ, Avicii, was found dead in Muscat, Oman, on Friday. Avicii was an international pop star who liked to embark upon exhausting world tours with back to back concerts lined up for weeks.
Tickets for his concerts were mostly sold out within minutes of declaration thanks to his die-hard fans all around the globe. Avicii was a natural when it came to melody and beats, he started producing when he was only 16.
Avicii won the Grammy Award for Artist of The Year in 2014, and his dance recording ‘Sunshine’ in collaboration with David Guetta was nominated for a Grammy back in 2012 when he was as young as 22.
As I heard about his death, my first reaction was to YouTube Wake Me Up, Avicii’s lead single song from his debut studio album True, which released in 2013. Wake Me Up skyrocketed charts in Europe and in several other countries around the world.
The most beautiful aspect of the song apart from its lyrics is its folktronica composition that blends elements of EDM, country and soul music.
Avicii enjoyed a huge fanbase in India, and his India tours were much awaited by thousands of fans. Sunburn Festival hosted the Avicii India Tour in 2013, in Delhi and Mumbai, much to the delight and excitement of Indian fans, who were devastated when Avicii had to cancel the tour due to health-related issues.
At the beginning of this month when we lost Stephen Hawking to illness, we were terribly saddened, but losing Avicii to illness has a message for us that we need to address. Avicii loved every bit of his music and his tireless lifestyle, until the very end. On his official website: www.avicii.com he writes,
“We All Reach A Point In Our Lives And Careers Where We Understand What Matters The Most To Us.”
“For me it’s creating music. That is what I live for, what I feel I was born to do.
Last year I quit performing live, and many of you thought that was it. But the end of live never meant the end of Avicii or my music. Instead, I went back to the place where it all made sense – the studio.”
Avicii’s passions drove him to do wonders at a young age, and he had no regrets about the life he led, even though it made him burn out too soon. He often used to speak about how when he started touring at the age of 18, he ‘jumped into it 100 percent.’
Related: Swedish House Mafia Reunite After A Surprise Performance At The Miami Ultra Music Festival
His stressful profession pushed Avicii into alcoholism, and due to excessive drinking, he suffered acute pancreatitis. He canceled a series of shows in 2014, in attempt to recover from gallbladder and appendix removal.
Avicii had also been suffering from depression and anxiety since 2016. Despite all of this, Avicii continued to produce awesome music in his studio until the very day of his death.
Unfortunately, his death comes in the midst of his nomination for a 2018 Billboard Music Award for top dance/electronic album for his EP “Avicii (01).”
“When I look back on my life, I think: whoa, did I do that? It was the best time of my life in a sense. It came with a price – a lot of stress a lot of anxiety for me – but it was the best journey of my life,” Avicii told The Hollywood Reporter in 2016.
Today, we have many more young artists like Avicii who are already on their path to global fame and recognition, but sadly, the stress and overwork that Avicii was pushed into, is also something they are all going through.
The pressure to become successful too quick and achieve too much in too little time, is a trend that is burdening all the budding Aviciis around the world. It is giving birth to artists who please the world with their music and lyrics at the cost of leading peaceful and long lives devoid of depression.
At this point in time, it becomes difficult to decide whether a long peaceful life of steady growth is better than a short one filled with exponential growth and achievements and stress.
It would be wrong to pass a judgement on Avicii’s life because it was his active choice to work excessively hard to achieve international recognition for something he was passionate about.
But at the same time, we, the overambitious youth, need to weigh the pros and cons of such a choice. Towards the last few years of his life, Avicii was suffering from depression and anxiety.
He loved his music but at the same time, he talked about running away from his profession in a Billboard interview. According to Rolling Stone, the DJ said, “I need to figure my life out. The whole music thing was for the sake of success. I wasn’t getting any happiness anymore.”
Had he been here today, Avicii would have liked each one of us to make a choice about the lifestyles we want to chase. He would have wanted us to consider all the perils and consequences of our choices wisely, in order to avoid losing out in the future.
We need to set our priorities straight, before it is too late and we miss out on the goals and dreams we set out to achieve each day.
Image Credits: Google Images
Sources: Bloomberg, Avicii Official Site, Variety, Tribune + more
You’d Also Like To Read:
http://edtimes.in/2018/04/hypnotic-lyrics-by-gulzar-make-alia-bhatts-raazi-song-ae-watan-a-hit-amongst-poetry-lovers/
