Kygo

Kygo was already composing piano melodies alone in Bergen in 2009 when he first heard Avicii and, in his own words, "got curious by his style of music" — the Swede's tunes were "kind of simple but very catchy," and reminded him of what he was already writing. He has called "Wake Me Up" outright "the biggest song ever," telling ABC News in 2019, "I just knew that this is what I wanna do!" Avicii didn't just point him toward dance music; he proved a pop melody could survive an EDM arrangement fully intact.

listen: upstream & heresource: Rolling Stone — Kygo on Birth of Tropical House, Billy Joel Fandom (backs Avicii, Billy Joel, and Finnebassen influence claims) ↗share

2013

Wake Me UpAvicii

→↓

2014

FirestoneKygo

listen forCue up "Wake Me Up" and then "Firestone" back to back: both hang the entire track on one instantly hummable hook — Avicii's picked-guitar riff, Kygo's breathy whistle-and-piano lead — stated plainly before the beat ever drops, then repeated until it's the only thing you remember. Neither song asks the drop to do the emotional work; the melody already did it, the way Kygo says Avicii's did for him years before he made a track of his own.

By the early 2010s Kygo had tired of progressive house — "a lot of it sounded the same," he said — and started listening to Oslo producer Finnebassen, whose "deep house with funky basslines" pulled him toward a slower tempo. "The BPMs got slower and slower, and I ended up at around 100 bpm," he told Rolling Stone, describing the exact tempo drop that became tropical house's signature. Finnebassen never broke past dance-music trade press, but Kygo credits him directly with the pivot.

listen: upstream & heresource: Rolling Stone — Kygo on Birth of Tropical House, Billy Joel Fandom (backs Avicii, Billy Joel, and Finnebassen influence claims) ↗share

2012

Touching MeFinnebassen

→↓

2013

Sexual Healing (Kygo Remix)Kygo

listen forFinnebassen's "Touching Me" rides a warm, rounded sub-bass line at a loping, unhurried tempo, nothing like the driving pulse of mainstream progressive house. Kygo's remix of "Sexual Healing," released the same year he says he was absorbing that sound, pulls Marvin Gaye's vocal over a comparably slowed, bass-warm groove — the tempo drop Kygo describes chasing, audible before he adds a single original melodic line of his own.

Asked point-blank which pianists he admires, Kygo answered without hesitating: "Elton John and Billy Joel, I find them both to be huge inspirations, those guys are so talented." It's a joint naming — Elton John gets equal billing in the same breath — and a general nod to craft rather than a claim about one song or record. Still, it lines up with how Kygo describes his own process: piano first, alone, at home, the melody worked out before anything electronic gets added.

listen: upstream & heresource: Rolling Stone — Kygo on Birth of Tropical House, Billy Joel Fandom (backs Avicii, Billy Joel, and Finnebassen influence claims) ↗share

1973

Piano ManBilly Joel

→↓

2017

StargazingKygo

listen for"Piano Man" opens on Joel's harmonica and a single circling piano figure before the room around him — a barroom, literally — fills in behind it. "Stargazing" runs the same trick with a synth pad standing in for that room, a spare piano phrase given space to breathe before Kygo builds the track up to full arrangement. Neither song hides its center: the piano stays the axis the whole arrangement turns around, verse to swelling chorus.