Avicii And The Ever-Changing Definition of EDM

Avicii: The unlikely bluegrass champion.

Things started getting weird when the banjo player arrived. The Swedish DJ known as Avicii had already been spinning onstage at Miami’s Ultra music festival for quite awhile, playing fairly standard club fare that included snippets of his own “Levels” as well as “Thrift Shop” by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis.

The crowd had gathered to hear the latest in electronic dance music, so when a handful of bluegrass musicians shuffled onto the stage last March, they...