Avicii’s second album ‘Stories’ turns 11
Eleven years ago, on October 2, 2015, Avicii released his second studio album, ‘Stories’. Arriving after two years of work, it was the last album Tim Bergling released during his lifetime.
Mark Seliger
Avicii had promised a more “song-oriented” record, and ‘Stories’ delivered exactly that. It opened with ‘Waiting For Love’, co-produced with Martin Garrix and featuring Simon Aldred of Cherry Ghost, and went on to include ‘For A Better Day’ with Alex Ebert, ‘Pure Grinding’ and ‘Broken Arrows’ with Zac Brown. Elsewhere, Chris Martin of Coldplay appeared on ‘True Believer’, while Sandro Cavazza featured on both ‘Sunset Jesus’ and ‘Gonna Love Ya’.
The album was a commercial success. It reached No. 1 in Sweden and Norway and the top ten in fourteen countries, while topping Billboard’s US Dance Albums chart. By November 2015, it had sold one million copies worldwide, and it was the fourth most-streamed album of the year on Spotify.
Its sound was broad and adventurous. Alongside the anthems, Avicii explored funk and disco on tracks like ‘Talk To Myself’, ‘Touch Me’ and the six-minute ‘City Lights’, showing just how far he wanted to push beyond the main stage. Several tracks had first surfaced during his Ultra Music Festival set earlier in 2015, building huge anticipation before the release.
A decade on, the album’s story is still being told. Last year, fans marked its 10th anniversary with a pop-up in Stockholm, followed by the ‘Stories on Stories’ YouTube series revisiting the songs. Read more about the album on Wikipedia.
