Do we like Avicii (Tim Bergling)?
Our score: 8 out of 10. No harmful words or acts turned up, plus real charity work, but his short career and thin public record keep him just shy of the top.
Tim Bergling was born in Stockholm in 1989, a quiet kid who loved long conversations and video games. He started making house tracks at 16 on a laptop, and he picked the name Avicii after a Myspace username clash. By 19 he was producing from a tiny flat and sending demos to blogs and labels.
The breakthrough was 2011's “Levels”, which exploded after Tomorrowland. From there came "Wake Me Up" with Aloe Blacc, which peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100, and work with Coldplay, Madonna and Robbie Williams. He also co-wrote the 2013 Eurovision title song with ABBA's Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus, which should make the family chuffed.
On the harm check, we came up empty. Nothing in the reporting shows him campaigning against anyone's rights, pushing conspiracy theories or sharing dodgy company. His collaborators are a mainstream bunch, and he died at 28, before most of today's culture-war stoushes. The honest caveat is that he rarely spoke about politics, so there is little on record either way.
In an old interview he said he wanted music that was “emotional, and had meaning”, and the work backs that up. He pushed into bluegrass-tinged sounds on the album True even when a festival crowd gave it a mixed reception. Fans still treat his songs as a shared sing-along.
The legal drama now is about his legacy, not about him. His former manager, Ash Pournouri, sued companies controlled by the Bergling family, saying a documentary and two books unfairly portrayed him over the pressure to keep touring. The estate's lawyer called the claims unfounded. A Swedish court dismissed the suit in March on legal grounds, not the substance, and an appeal court revived it in June.
A separate case, in which Pournouri accused the documentary's director of gross defamation, ended in an acquittal in June, and Pournouri has appealed. None of this reflects on Avicii himself, and nothing alleged in these cases is a finding against him. It does show how fiercely his story is still fought over.