Now, it has been an entire decade since Avicii’s greatest work was first heard, and while the beloved producer is no longer with us, “Levels” undoubtedly stands as the hallmark of Tim Bergling’s celebrated legacy. Rehashing the already iconic standing of Etta James’ “Something’s Got a Hold On Me,” the late Swedish producer introduced an entirely new generation of listeners to James’ vocal topline, flipping the tune into what would become perhaps the most famous dance track of all time, and launching himself into superstardom at the same time. Equal parts inescapable and addicting, “Levels” was everywhere at the onset of the last decade, proving case and point what electronic music is at its core-modernized redefinitions and creative interpolations of previous works through the art of sampling.

Moreover, the list of songs that have singularly come to define perhaps an entire genre gets infinitesimally smaller, but at the top of it is Avicii’s magnum opus, “Levels.” The song singlehandedly defines EDM’s collision with the mainstream, unequivocally representing the early 2010’s and dance music’s first real union with the public zeitgeist. There are few tracks that, alone, have come to define an entire musical moment in time.

List of avicii songs