Avicii's hidden links to French House

If you only know Avicii from "Levels" onwards then the French House thing probably sounds like a stretch. He started in the same forums as a lot of others in the mid to late-00s scene, and he had more of an impact than most people realise. Most of it never came out, and nearly no one brings it up.

Sebastien Drums

Sebastien Drums says that he met Avicii in March 2009, and everything worth talking about here comes out the year or so after that.

The most known of the tracks is "My Feelings For You", based on Cassius' "Feeling For You", a record Sebastien Drums said he'd never heard. It went to number one on Beatport, which means one of the first records that got Avicii noticed was a French House record even if it doesn't fit the standard definition.

Another one they did was "Big Colossus", a remix of Thomas Bangalter's "Colossus", and it's never been released and never will be.

Four years of "Make Your Move"

Avicii met some of the Eyezcream producers on the forums back in the day, which is how a record made in 2003 for a Canadian label ended up in the sets of the biggest DJ on the planet a decade later.

Avicii played a mashup with the original in 2010, and by 2012 he was playing out his own version.

Although the official name is unconfirmed, Redroche said it's an edit of their 2011 version under Redroche vs Armstrong rather than the 2003 original. Redroche (in the comments of a YouTube video) said that it was a special edit and there'd be more news soon. Despite what they said, nothing ended up happening, there was no release, no announcement, and Eyezcream ended up closing in 2012/2013.

He kept playing it, and the last time he played it was during his set at Ushuaïa Ibiza on 28 August 2016, which was also his final show.

Patrick Alavi and the forum

Alavi said on a now-removed Instagram description that Avicii used to play "New Chance" in his sets, which is strange, because "New Chance" is an unreleased track from 2003 that seemingly only Laidback Luke had a copy of. Avicii came up on Laidback Luke's forum though, so there might be a link there. There's no audio of him playing it and no tracklist anywhere to prove it, so take it as an unconfirmed rumour.

"Fuck The Music"

This one is stretching the definition a little bit ;-) It takes a big loop from Yarbrough & Peoples' "Don't Stop The Music", which is an R&B record from 1980. Then instead of just looping it for six minutes, it builds and drops into an electro record with a repetitive bassline.

The Derezzed one

Supposedly this was an unreleased track that Avicii had nearly finished, but he thought it was missing something. Luckily for him, Disney wanted him to do a remix for Daft Punk's TRON Legacy soundtrack, so he slapped an arp on it using the melody from "Derezzed", and it came out on "Tron: Legacy Reconfigured" in April 2011, which many Daft Punk fans like to forget about due to Pedro Winter's dissatisfaction.

He made a vocal mix later in 2011, and in January 2013 he gave away a track called "Three Million (Your Love Is So Amazing)" with the same vocals by Negin to celebrate hitting three million likes on Facebook.

In 2014, the vocal mix was finally released as Avicii's "So Amazing Mix".

He's remembered for the biggest records of the decade, but some of his best tracks are French House edits that never came out.