After years of… Well, not a lot really… Swedish House Mafia are making headlines again today, with the news of their split from manager Ron Laffitte of the Patriot Management Group. The group teamed up with Laffitte in 2019 following a parting of ways with long-time manager Amy Thomson shortly before their Stockholm reunion. Many eyebrows were raised at the decision, with Amy often credited by many insiders as a key reason for their meteoric rise during the ‘EDM’ era, with various experts also pointing to her track record with artists such as Alesso, Chase & Status, and most recently, DJ Snake, as shining lights on her CV. Despite this, it was rumoured that Swedish House Mafia – and Steve Angello especially – felt a change of direction was needed, but Laffitte must now take a portion of blame for a lack of new music, and several cancelled shows since the trio triumphantly reformed at Ultra Music Festival in Miami in March 2018.
With the last SHM single arriving 9 years ago this summer (‘Don’t You Worry Child’, in 2012), many fans have started to lose interest in the hype train created by the group, consisting of Axwell, Sebastian Ingrosso, and Steve Angello. Festival-goers were left feeling further frustration in August 2019, when Creamfields closed the main (Arc) stage all day on Sunday – the festival’s final day – to allow SHM time to build their own stage design, only for the Scandinavians to then appear on stage late, and leave again 15 minutes before the end of their scheduled slot. With Columbia Records signing the group for $3 million in February 2019 following a bidding war with Universal, a huge array of new music was expected. But despite this, and performances of new singles ‘It Gets Better’ and ‘Underneath It All’ at the Tele2 Arena in May 2019, nothing has since materialised, and Columbia have most certainly been left a little shortchanged by such a deal with Swedish House Mafia.
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