Nova Miller and I have an astonishing amount of things in common: we are both beautiful, blonde five octave range-commanding Swedish pop chanteuses, multi-instrumentalists and TikTok-famous teens, and we both know how to drive ourselves fucking crazy.
Well, okay, fine. Maybe just the latter in common.
In any case, I’ve been watching the singer-songwriter rise (rise up, lotus, rise) for a while now, which is wild. In fact, I was writing about her elsewhere when she was just 13 years old. At this point, an Introduucing… post on MuuMuse is long overdue.
Discovered by none other than Queen Lolene (if you know, you know – fake it ’til you make it, baby), the now 18-year-old Stockholm-born singer has already hustled for years with songs like “Supernova,” “Singing in the Rain,” “So Good” and “Not Your Number.”
And with her latest single, “Do It To Myself,” Nova’s quite possibly made her best bid for superstardom to date.
Produced by The Monsters and the Strangerz, the same hit-making team behind Zedd‘s “The Middle” with Maren Morris, and the same duo who just did one of my favorite new songs, “Vulnerable” by Selena Gomez (album review here), the track takes the Zoomer (that’s what we’re calling Gen Z babes, right?) zoomin’ all the way back to 1965 with an intoxicating guitar melody, soaring strings, throwback harmonies and an instantly recognizable sample of The Mamas & The Papas‘ “California Dreamin’.”
“When it comes to love, I overthink everything too much / Start saying shit I don’t even mean / So you don’t need to drive me crazy…I’ll do that to myself,” Nova proudly declares on the wildly relatable, self-dragging, swinging retro-meets-modern pop bop.
The song was released back in October of 2019, but sometimes love takes time, and that’s what seems to happening here. Nova’s also gradually blown up on TikTok with over half a million followers (no laughing matter, especially when you look at all the songs charting after going viral on the platform), and so, it was time to unveil a glossy visual to accompany the ’60s-referencing smash-to-be.
The music video finds Nova traveling back well before her time and finding, well, herself performing at the nightclub, serving up a series of vintage, with movement coaching by – hang on tight to your PCD workout DVD – founding Pussycat Doll member and dance industry legend herself, Carmit Bachar. Yes, for real. Legends only, truly.
“First thing I wanna say is HAIR. I was living my best hair life. I had my long silky Cher hair, the Brigitte Bardot bouffant happening, we had the cute vintage Nancy Sinatra flick and some Nova Miller real girl hair going on too,” Nova says of the video. And it’s true: there’s a real hair journey going on throughout the video.
“It gave me space to have fun and showcase the different sides of myself. As people, we have layers and I got to give my layers characters. You won’t see any emo Nova though, I’m all about keeping it positive.”
Beyond just the song itself being good, Nova also demonstrated her raw talent with an acoustic take on the track in November, where you can really hear how absolutely fantastic her voice is without any production – those JoJo-esque runs, those effortless yelps! – not to mention her guitar skills.
“Some of the challenges I face as a new artist are: ‘don’t look too old, don’t look too young, be different!’ As a young girl I am discovering and realizing that I am different, I am enough, there is only one me and I’m super grateful to live my dream,” she says of finding her own place in the music industry.
As long as she keeps putting those impressive vocal chops to good use and delivering quality bops like “Do It To Myself,” she’ll have no one else to blame but herself when she properly blows up in due time.
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Photo credit: Janelle Shirtcliff / 300 Entertainment
