Avicii & SFX Entertainment | The missing story behind the downFall of EDM

The EDM scene took on its highest success at pivotal time adjacent and carefully related to that of Avicii’s career, from 2011-2017. During that timeframe, EDM scene was providing countless chart-topping hits, replacing dying rock and punk-pop cultures, giving motility to a new wave of youth culture, and soon enough becoming a worldwide phenomenon. This was the era when EDM was topping pop charts for the first time, DJs got paid six figures for a DJ set for the first, and the community felt connected to the root of the movement. Avicii played a huge role in the catalytic momentum gained to the rise of the EDM movement, while on another hand, SFX entertainment, a company run by Media Giant Robert Sillerman escalated the global rise of the movement with its capital and monopoly of scene assets that also contributed to the fast burnout and eventual downfall of EDM.

This Article investigates an often-overlooked side of how the career of Avicii tied with Robert Sillerman’s monopolizing corporation, SFX entertainment, and how both these entities tied very closely to the rise and fall of EDM empire. The rise from 2011-2012 and the fall from 2016-2017. The parallels are too clear to be overlooked and provide deep insight into a chop of music industry history.

Downfall Story of EDM via the lens of two entities

New Culture Emerging

EDM culture wouldn’t have emerged the way it did, if it were not for the ripe timing, which proved to be the most precious factor foreseeing the cultivating of the movement to its peak heights. Some crucial roles were played by:

-          Online Video Culture was starting up, with live stream getting on board along with YouTube. The EDM sounds fit perfectly the new rising video culture.

-          It was also the time where high activity on music forums was taking place online. Avicii was discovered on radar early on from his activity on various online blogs.

-          EDM provided the fresh sound palette for youth culture , a sound for the new generation. So, with the decline of pop and rock music, the opening was ripe for EDM.

Before 2010, EDM was largely underground in the U.S., with some regional scenes of House, Trance, and Techno in Europe. Artists like Tiesto, daft Punk, and David Guetta were pushing the scene but hadn’t cracked fully the U.S. mainstream. This was all to change. After Avicii released the 2011 hit ‘’Levels’’, the game changed. Avicii had cracked the formula to making EDM go big, with a humanized approach and storytelling at heart. EDM was no longer underground, it was pop. The wall street eyes and media giant like Robert Sillerman were attentive.  Where attention flows, money also goes and soon enough SFX Entertainment was to be reborn with the strategy and intention to monopolize the EDM scene and create a great commodity out of it.

Cracking The Code

Many artists were pushing the boundaries of EDM, but no one yet could crack the code of the big hit until Avicii came along. Avicii broke the formula by bringing out emotional centric themes and blends. His was able to fuse live instruments, elements of pop, elements of country, and EDM seamlessly, making his songs very emotionally accessible to wide range of listeners, and equally playable for festivals and radio. And fair to mention, great for a multitude of themed playlists.

Before Avicii, EDM was all drops and hypes. After Avicii, Storytelling became center figure and fusion became a new face of the art. His sound aided the global rise of the movement. His music’s subject matter related to the widest of audience, with the content of his music focusing on uplifting life stories and dreams of future and past. He proved that EDM could evolve beyond the drop, emotional songwriting mattered, and people dance music could be made with acoustic guitars.

SFX Entertainment’s Monopoly

A company founded by Robert Sillerman, saw the potential of the new music culture movement, and started buying out all big assets related to EDM, under the strategy to consolidate the whole scene. In Pacman fashion, SFX started gobbling up all big EDM festivals, promoters, labels, Distribution companies, spending hundreds of millions of dollars. They ended up buying all major EDM promoters, festivals, and brands leveraging the hype around EDM to attract investors, and to turn subculture into product. In less than a year EDM was more popularized with the aid of SFX Entertainment as they pushed the limits of the artists and the industry, commercializing the genre and capitalizing all the fruits it has to offer.

They bought out Tomorrowland, Beatport, most big promoter agencies and distribution leads. They exported assets of the scene to the U.S. which was still fresh on EDM compared to Europe. They not only disrespected the culture by commodifying it and flagging up the price figures, but also caused much distress to the artists who were under pressure to release, promote, and tour with no clear guides to mental health.

The dealings committed by SFX consumed the industry and lead to the eventual loss of sub-culture turned into a tourist wonder and landmark for mobile phones flash. Although they helped kickstart the commercial side of the culture big time and turn it mainstream, it equally contributed to short sightedness of the eventual decline due to sub-neutralization of the scene. The innovation scale tipped off.

Corportae Greed vs Culture

The Parallels

When audiences and journalists talk of the fall of EDM, the forgotten piece of the puzzle is often overlooked. Perhaps because the same piece that commercialized the movement, also caused the most damage. It was SFX entertainment that between 2012 and 2014 gained monopoly and consolidated the EDM scene as their strategy demanded. SFX played central role for the commercialization and eventual implosion especially in the U.S. market. The damages included culture distortion, overpricing events, and relinquishing on hype. Also included over-burdening successful artists with demanding touring and releasing schedules, with inconsideration to mental health.

Avicii vs SFX

-         When Avicii broke out his hits Levels in 2010, SFX was starting to get into business.

-         The same curve line of the rise and fall of Avicii mirrors that of SFX entertainment and that of the now industrialized culture they both honed.

-         When Avicii quit in 2017, SFX also assigned bankruptcy.

Avicii was foreseeing the demise of EDM. He had outgrown the genre, but the genre and its fans didn’t like it. He was ready to move on. EDM scene was lost. Eventually, the EDM bubble burst, it became a predictable drop culture, many DJs pivoted to pop or other, and the big room sound faded. The greed corporation holding the enterprise failed to listen and and foresee the downfalls of the culture it was leaching on with no understanding but to the monetary prospects it may lead. The parasite was to fall too with the pending downfall of the body of EDM. The same year Avicii retired, 2016, SFX Entertainment filed for Bankruptcy. Before filing, Robert Sillerman, his early investors, executives, and board members cashed out with tens of millions of dollars. Avicii and others lost and paid costs of psychological and physiological turmoil. By 2017, EDM was no longer the future. It was the past that hadn’t learned how to age.

The Lessons

Here a few clear lessons to assimilate from this epic.

1.Underground culture thrives on authenticity. If you try to commercialize this sub-culture, you end up hurting it and alienating audiences. Avicii got under the pressure of remaining commercial after a certain threshold in his career, which added to his mental demise as well to the demise of the creative capacity of the scene.

2. when something hypes up at high rate in short span, there is a good chance, it will not be permanent. SFX thought that riding the hype could make a permanent case out of it, which was evidently not right. They went in debt and couldn’t strategically sustain the culture that brought it. The innovation scale plummeted.

3. Lack of innovation halts a culture. EDM and its formulaic exposition and production lead to its inevitable downfall and biproduct of toxic culture. i.e. same festivals same lineups same formula of music etc.

In today’s EDM, mental health is a topic, but the structure remains and with the pressures of social media, new challenges present themselves. EDM in many ways has rebuilt itself and stagnated on some accounts. New acts show promise following footsteps of Avicii’s feel something first then make them dance guideline.

The story of Avicii, SFX Entertainment and the downfall of EDM is an epic and short-lived legend with potent lessons on fronts of industry structure, artists health, art and corporation, the make and end of trends, ripe time frames, the making of sonic identity, and music culture evolution.

Avicii helped build the EDM empire, and his rebellion helped bring it down. He did not only just define the rise of EDM but also predicted its fall and tried to rewrite its ending.