This song is a simple one but a masterpiece nonetheless. It narrates Mikes Posner's ascent into fame and also his descent or stagnation in other aspects of his life. The original version has a very subtle guitar playing over it and its vibe and pace are very slow. It gives a bit of a country vibe instead of the pop sounds that Mike Posner is known for. Many of his other songs are great and not too well known (They should be known more in my opinion) but also some of them are very generic as well. This is maybe why I love I Took A Pill In Ibiza, it is not very generic sounding. His lines "I'm living out In LA and I drive a sports car just to prove I'm a real big baller cause I made a million dollars and I spend it on girls and shoes..." are very narrative of the life of someone's celebrity status rising. We flaunt when we get a little money. We all do it. We like to feel good When looking at celebrities, for many the first thoughts that come to mind are: Money, Jewelry, Cars, Girls or Boys and big houses and taking trips. It is a life that many seem to want but Mike Posner is explicitly saying "You don't wanna ride a bus like this..." and you'd think that a man with money would be happy and that his problems would be solved huh? No way. That is where the lines "You don't even wanna step off that roller coaster all alone." How bad can having money be? Many of us would like fame but can't attain it so we have our social media be our platforms and our followers and friends be our fans and spectators. (But that is a conversation for a different time.)
The limelight is amazing, it's great, we crave it yet he doesn't. Why is that? Expectation and Relationships. The expectation is that since he's a celebrity, he has to be Godly. It is an unwritten rule that many celebrities seem to be held accountable for . You can not be in the news for anything bad as a celebrity. You can't be in hiding or else people forget about you. You are essentially a marketing brand. The labels or agents that have you will use you until your star fizzles out, which means that until people forget about you or don't want to hear anything from you because they've moved on. Music artists, in particular, are usually dropped and picked up, dropped and picked up, over and over again in an agonizing cycle that may affect the type of music that is being made. The music isn't written from the heart and mind of the celebrity anymore, it is written for the fans so that they can still be relevant. even at times, it is not them who writes their songs, it is label execs who have other people write songs for the artists to perform. Mike Posner in the songs says these chilling lines, "I'm just a singer who already blew his shot, I get along with old timers cause my name's a reminder of a pop song people forgot..." That line is a reference to the song Cooler Than Me that Posner made back in 2009. That song was his ascent into his stardom but then he quickly realized how hard it is to be relevant because fans are very picky. Fans make or break an artist. he's had songs like Bow Chicka Wow Wow even featuring Lil Wayne, also another song was The Way It Used To Be and many other songs he's released over the years that have not resonated with fans. When music doesn't resonate with fans, Labels will essentially "shelve" the artist, meaning just put them away in the history books along with many washed up artists and when an artists is shelved then it is hard to get off of the shelf and come back with another hit song. It took Mike Posner going through all of the stardom to really hit resonate with fans and surpass his last hit Cooler Than Me.
Having a relationship as a celebrity is a hard thing to cope with. As Mike Posner said: "I can't keep a girl no, cause as soon as the sun comes up, I cut 'em all loose and works my excuse but the truth is I can't open up..." When you've been hurt over and over again it is hard to open up to new people, especially being a celebrity that has money and anything that he/she may desire. There is a certain mistrust that starts to arise subconsciously about the person that they may be seeing. The thoughts may range from if the person may only like them for their money, for their celebrity or just to get famous for themselves. There is also another aspect of being in a cycle while on the road. Mike Posner being on the road a lot, he is used to being with women for one night and he loved it at first but then it starts to dawn on him that he is missing something. He feels an open space that he so desperately wants to fill so he dives deeper into this cycle of woman after woman each day thinking that it will fill the gap but it doesn't and he is just left with his sad songs that he writes. In another aspect, the friendships that come to also start to get questioned because you never know if someone is really your friend until you go broke and lose your celebrity status.
As someone who makes music and knows people who make music and have had tastes of the music industry, I Took A Pill In Ibiza is one song that generates talks among musicians specifically. Fans can either make or break you and music labels can either help or hurt you. I specifically like this song best because it has two version. One that makes you think deeply about what is being said and the later remix that you can dance too but understand his feelings.
