Vargas & Lagola finish Avicii’s ‘Tough Love’ with vocals by Agnes
Before Swedish DJ and producer Avicii passed away in June last year, he was busy working on new music. His family decided they wanted to share his last work with the world. On the 6th of June, the album Tim (after Avicii’s real name) will be released. His long-time co-producers and co-writers Vargas & Lagolas, who worked with him on hits like ‘Hey Brother’ and ‘Waiting For Love’, have been finishing and fine tuning the demos and ideas they created with Avicii. One of those tracks is ‘Tough Love’, which does not only features Vargas’s vocals but also Swedish pop star Agnes.

In an interview about ‘Tough Love’, producers and writers Vargas & Lagola explain how they tried to stay as close as possible to the demos and the ideas they had with Avicii. They recall how they created a demo for ‘Tough Love’ with guitar and that it was Avicii who had the idea to fit in an ‘oriental sounding’ sample he had laying around. It was Salem Al Fakir (Lagola) who played the violin for that sample. It was Avicii’s wish that two people who were connected in real life would perform ‘Tough Love’ as a duet, so Vincent Pontare (Vargas) brought out his wife Agnes, who had major hits with pop bangers ‘Release Me’ and ‘On And On’ back in 2009.

The result is a fresh sound for Avicii. Somehow the production sounds quintessentially Avicii, while the sample Vargas & Lagola discussed, which serves as an intro and drop, gives the song a refreshing vibe. Both Vargas and Agnes serve warm vocals and the main hook is stunning. A posthumous album is a tricky thing to do, but so far it seems that the team that finished Tim did things tastefully with the utmost respect for Avicii’s legacy. ‘Tough Love’ is a beautiful addition to his impressive discography.