Mike Posner and the Real Story Behind I Took a Pill in Ibiza

Transcript

"It was a song about how my career was over," Mike Posner has said of "I Took a Pill in Ibiza." The first line goes, "I took a pill in Ibiza to show Avicii I was cool." His music, people who know him say, was always based on what he was going through in his life, and once he lost that, he'd lost everything.

"I Took a Pill in Ibiza" has over 1.7 billion views on YouTube. The song even brought Posner out of retirement to start touring again. But while on the surface it seems like a feel good party track, behind the beat is Posner's real story, a story about how brutal fame and fortune can really be. Despite his commercial success, Posner battled depression, anxiety, and a crumbling sense of self, even being shelved by his label right when he was supposed to be at the top.

What most people don't know is that Posner originally wrote the song as a slow, emotional folk pop track. "The version that's a hit is a remix," he said. "And the original song is basically an acoustic song, and it's very sad."

But only a few months after the release, it was remixed by the Norwegian duo SeeB. That version, the remix, turned into a global hit. So even though Posner's original production wasn't what made it go viral, the lyrics definitely were.

You see, songwriting was always in his blood. He started young, freestyling with his cousins who were MCs. But it was during college that everything changed for him. At the time, he was close with Big Sean, since they were both from Detroit. "I met him when I was 18, and he had already met Kanye. He wasn't signed yet, but he had met Kanye," Posner said. When Big Sean got signed to Kanye West's label, it lit a fire under Posner to go all in on music. Once Big Sean got a record deal, Posner figured he could too. "If he can get a record deal, I can get a record deal for sure."

While attending Duke University, Posner set up his own studio in his dorm room and began seriously recording. But 2009 was when he had his first real piece of good music. With help from Big Sean, Posner produced his first mixtape, A Matter of Time. But there was one big problem: how would he get people to actually listen to it?

You see, in the early 2000s, people would pirate everything. "When we were at Duke, we did not pay for music. And so I knew no one was going to pay for my music, because we weren't paying for Kanye's music. We weren't paying for Jay-Z, the artist we love the most. We were stealing their music. So no one's going to pay for my music, 'cause no one knows who I am."

No one was buying music, especially college kids. There was a problem in the music industry at the time. There was no Spotify and no TikTok to promote a new song. Only by signing with a record label could an artist have a chance at becoming successful. So instead, Posner got creative. "I got my music onto iTunes, and you just search on iTunes like any other thing. But when you went to my album, it came up, the price was free." Instead of selling his music, which no one would buy, he put up his mixtape on iTunes U, an app that let students get free textbooks from their professors. But it didn't stop there. Posner was in a fraternity, so he got hundreds of his brothers to change their Facebook profile picture to his mixtape cover.

And the plan worked. After just a couple of months, the song got him a record deal, and that song was "Cooler Than Me." The mixtape hit number one on iTunes U quickly, which was definitely not expected for a music mixtape on that kind of platform. The mixtape featured Big Sean and had tracks like "Cooler Than Me," "Drug Dealer Girl," and "You Don't Have to Leave Me." Music blogs, college radio, and industry insiders took notice, which resulted in Posner getting offers from major record labels. The tape was exploding, especially across college campuses. And while labels were looking at him, Posner was performing at colleges across the country.

"I became kind of a college underground sensation, and I was like the man inside of that world. And I was in college, so it was pretty surreal, you know, to go to another campus and everyone knows who you are."

Earning thousands of dollars every weekend, all while doing homework on the plane ride back to school, he eventually signed to J Records in July of 2009. Posner later said in interviews that they told him to stop rapping, that rap wasn't his lane, just sing the hooks. And that's what he started to do. At this point, he was 21 years old and still a senior at Duke.

He followed that with his debut album, 31 Minutes to Takeoff, in August of 2010. It had hit songs like "Cooler Than Me" and "Please Don't Go." Both went platinum. He was touring, doing talk shows, and getting radio hits. But behind the scenes, Posner was already feeling burned out. And that's when it took a turn for the worst.

The Career Slide

"Touring around the world, taking my shirt off at shows, making more money than I deserve. And then a strange thing happened. I put out another song after that, and it wasn't really a hit. And then the next one after that was even less of a hit. And this trend just continued until my career was considered all the way over. I went from being this young cool guy who, like I said, was taking my shirt off at shows, to just being at home in LA. I'd made a little bit of money, but the calendar was empty."

While Posner's debut album might have looked like a success, behind the scenes it was haunting him. The label came back after its release and they weren't very happy. The problem was the songs didn't live up to the hype of "Cooler Than Me," his first single. "But actually, the experience then was, 'Please Don't Go' was a failure 'cause it wasn't as big as 'Cooler Than Me,' but it also really felt like a failure, and was deemed a failure by the label."

Posner later said he was battling depression during that time. He said the world felt too big. Fame hit him hard, and so did the pressure to keep winning. By 2011, all the buzz for him was gone, and the label was looking for the next big hit. He used the label's money to work with people like J. Cole and Pharrell Williams. "Now it's time for me to put the album out, and the label's paid all these people, you know, it's probably half a million dollars. It didn't make sense for them."

Between 2011 and 2014, he made two full albums, Sky and Pages, which he's still trying to get the rights back to, but the label didn't like the albums and decided to shelve him. "If anything kind of takes off on its own, or leaks, and raises its hand, or if he plays something really incredible, we'll put it out. But we'll just kind of keep him over here and not release his music. There's one word for this in the music industry, it's called getting shelved."

And the label gave up on him. Posner eventually just left the label and started to focus on himself. During that time, he wrote for other people. He co-wrote for Justin Bieber and wrote songs for Maroon 5. Funny enough, these songs were supposed to be his, for his own album, but he still felt empty from losing fame. He didn't know what to do. He was dealing with loneliness.

"If that's not what life is about, you know, chasing material or external things, then what is it about?"

The Wake Up Call

But then came a wake up call for him. A financial adviser told him he'd made enough money to live modestly for the rest of his life. And that changed everything, because he didn't have to chase hits anymore, and he didn't have to do anything he didn't want to do. So he started writing real songs, honest ones, stuff that actually reflected how he felt. And in 2015, he wrote "I Took a Pill in Ibiza." It was a quiet acoustic song. It was real, written from one of the lowest points of his life. At the time, he saw himself as a one hit wonder. And that song came straight from pain.

The song was then remixed by SeeB and turned into a global hit. The song took off, and suddenly Posner was back touring around the world again. But this time, he was mentally clear.

But even with this comeback, life hit him hard. In 2017, his dad passed away from brain cancer. He then lost Avicii and Mac Miller. It hit him hard, but he pushed through it. He later said that Avicii's death in particular was a wake up call. It forced Posner to confront his own purpose. He said, "One day I'll be dead," and that motivated him to take some action. "I wanted to do it for five years. And it really wasn't until after my dad died, and then really when my friend Avicii died, that I knew my life is now."

In 2019, Posner decided to walk across America, not for any attention, just for himself. And today, Posner continues to push himself mentally, and he's in a much better place. He also frequently releases new music, and he was even at EDC 2025.