Icona Pop are back with brand new music as they celebrate a decade since their Charli XCX collaboration I Love It dominated the charts worldwide.
Released in May 2012, the duo – starring Caroline Hjelt and Aino Jawo – spent two months climbing the charts in their native Sweden, where it peaked at No. 2 over the summer, before making waves globally in 2013, going Top 10 in the US and topping the UK Singles Chart.
Earlier this year, they returned with their latest track, I Want You (feat Galantis), which is set to feature on the long-awaited follow-up to their international debut album ‘This Is… Icona Pop’ (2013), and speaking exclusively to RETROPOP they shared details of their latest project.
“We’ve been touring for so many years and we’ve been trying to write music, then when we left LA and went back to Sweden before the lockdown started we were super bored and we ended up in the same studio where we wrote our first songs,” reveals Aino.
“We were also scared,” adds Caroline. “What was gonna happen with our career? Would we ever be able to stand on stage again? Or travel? It was such a weird time…”
With the future of their career in doubt, the pair set about working on new material while touching base with fans with virtual ‘Rave Spa’ sessions on social media.
“We’d be doing sheet masks and DJing in robes. Just really fun things so we were still connected with our fans, which influenced us when we started writing,” Caroline continues. “We said, ‘OK – let’s go in, have no rules, and see where we end up.’ And it’s pretty cool that during the most quiet times of our lives, we wrote our clubbiest songs ever!”
The new material arrives 10 years after their breakthrough – which the pair reveals almost didn’t happen when the team around them at the time cast doubt on the potential for I Love It to become a hit.
Recalling the “shitty time”, Aino shares: “Some people that we used to work with didn’t think the song was good enough and we were like, ‘Don’t you hear it? This song is so good – we need to release it!’.
“So we actually released it ourselves first and then Atlantic Records picked it up and we were just living life.”
In the time since, the duo has released multiple singles and more recently they’ve both become first-time parents. Aino muses: “We’ve changed a lot and, of course, you have a lot to live up to when you’ve had such big success – especially with one song – but there’s so much more to Icona Pop as well.
“It’s not just about I Love It; it’s about our friendship and the love we have for what we do.”
Read the full interview in the May 2023 edition of RETROPOP, out now. Order yours or subscribe via our Online Store, use our Store Finder to locate your nearest stockist, or get Digital Copies delivered direct to your devices.
