How Avicii's "Levels" Drew 15M YouTube Views Before Its Official Release
aakashgupta · x · 2026-10-30
A look back at how Avicii's "Levels" became a festival anthem before it officially dropped on October 28, 2011.
- He road-tested the track for nearly a year: an early cut aired on BBC Radio 1 in December 2010, and the finished version debuted as "ID" at Ultra Miami that March.
- He played it at club after club, tweaking the track based on crowd reactions.
- A bootleg ripped from those sets racked up 15 million YouTube views before the song was legally available, so by the July 2011 Tomorrowland main stage show, the crowd already knew every note.
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