AVEM (Album)

Album Cover

**AVEM -** The debut album by British EDM producer and DJ YeNie Ann Walker. The album was released on 15 October 2021 and has 6 promotional singles - "Fantasy", "Fire", "Leave You" featuring Filipino producer Mello Jia, "Against the World", "Favourite Nostalgia" and "Spirit".

## Backgroud Story

*AVEM* is a Latin word means *"Aviation".* She describes this album as her flight to the music industry; the album that brought her to where she is now, though at first, it has a bit turbulence on her way, but still, made it. She once revealed that most of the album tracks was supposed to have collaborations with DJs *Mello Jia* and *Giovanni Walker*, but then cancelled due to their schedules conflict, so it was released as her solo debut album instead. The album is said to have a major influence from artists Tobu and TheFatRat, and is mostly consists of electro house and progressive electro house tracks.

## Releases

The era started when she dropped her debut single "Fantasy" on 3 September 2021. The single became the most streamed EDM song of all time and peaked at number 4 on Billboard Top 100. Several weeks after that, she released "Fire" on 3 October 2021 as the second single on the album. Then she released more singles "Leave You" featuring producer Mello Jia on 6 October 2021, and "Against the World" on 9 October 2021, before she officially announced her debut album AVEM. She announced that the album will be having 10 official tracks - including aformentioned singles, and 3 bonus tracks - including her first collaboration with singer Umang "LMAO", her remix of Mello Jia's unreleased debut song "Right Now", and Mello's remix of one of the AVEM's single "Fire. On 15 October 2021, she officially released the debut album AVEM together with 3 promised bonus tracks. Weeks after the album drop, she released the track "Favourite Nostalgia" as the 5th single of the album, together with the last single "Spirit".

## Singles' Peaks

 Fire
 Leave You (ft. Mello Jia)
 Favourite Nostalgia
 Against the World
 Spirit

## Singles, Promotions and Tours

### Singles

Walker's debut single "Fantasy" was freely released on 3 September, and was later released via the record label "Joytime Collective". It was released to streaming devices (only Spotify and YouTube) on its release on the label, and later was sent on the radios after the release of the album. It became popular, and declared as one of the most popular EDM song of all time alongside "Remember Us", although it peaked at number 4 on the Billboard Top 100 and it wasn't sent yet to the radios. It is also has over 2B streams on Spotify, and 2.2B views on YouTube, making it the most streamed and viewed EDM song of all time. It also has sold 10.9M copies worldwide.

"Fire" was freely released on 3 October, and later released on her label. It was released only on YouTube, Spotify and to radio stations. It has over 1.8B streams on Spotify, 2.1B on YouTube and sold 7.5M copies worldwide.

"Leave You" was released on the record on 6 October to streaming devices - YouTube and Spotify, and to radio stations together with the first two singles. The single has now over 300M streams on Spotify and 2.1B views on YouTube, being the most viewed song on the album, and the most viewed EDM song on the platform.

"Against the World" was released as the 4th single of the album on 9 October to streaming devices - YouTube and Spotify. The label decided not to send it to the radio due to some conflicts, but then she made a Radio Edit of the song and passed it to the radio stations, but the said edit wasn't released officially. The single recently has 99M on Spotify, being the least streamed song on the album, and 1.6B views on YouTube, being the second least viewed on the album.

"Favourite Nostalgia" was released as the 5th promotional single of the debut album. It was released on streaming platforms YouTube and Spotify. The single has 200M streams on YouTube, and 2B views on YouTube.

"Spirit" was released as the 6th and final promotional single of the album. It was released on streaming platforms YouTube and Spotify, and the single has 1.4B views on YouTube, being the least viewed song on the album, and has 1B streams on Spotify.

### Promotions and Tours

The album was highly promoted by the record label and Walker herself. She has performed all the tracks on to a lot of her set at festivals, including her 1-hour set at Ultra Music Festival in her hometown London weeks after the official album release, her first ever set on Tomorrowland Festival in Belgium and to EDC in Las Vegas. She also performed a lot of track mashups, including the mashup of "Fantasy" and "Favourite Nostalgia" and few more on Capital FM and to award shows - The Grammys, American Music Awards and MTV Video Music Awards.

The album was then embarked on The Aviation Tour, on which Walker visited 12 cities all around the world, and made 135 shows overall. The said tour grossed over $196M box office, making it the 2nd highest grossing tours of Walker. It was also attended by 1.5M Potatoes all over the world, and lasts up to 11 months.

## Critical Reception and Impact

### Critical Reception

AVEM received a fair review from the critics, with the Metacritic score of **78 out of 100**, making it the second least critically acclaimed album by the artist, the least being *Contritos Mundi*.

*"As a budding DJ, Walker certainly did a good job. Not everything is perfect, but...does it have to?" -* quote unquote from the critics.

### Impact

The album was declared as the Best Album Debut of all time and the most streamed debut album of all time by Spotify. It was also considered as the EDM Bible of the industry before her 4th studio album *Contritos Mundi* came, but basically, the mentioned album stole everything from AVEM. The album also had sold 10M copies, making it the least selling album by Walker, tied with her 6th studio album "LUNA" and her most recent release "Alan". The album also has 6.4B streams on Spotify and 11.4B views on YouTube.