“I love who I see looking at me in the mirror.”
Not so fast, Olivia Rodrigo.
While the sound at radio might be steadily shifting towards something that resembles an early ’00s pop-punk revival (which is great in its own right), last year’s wave of disco-inspired pandemic pop ushered in by the likes of Dua Lipa, Jessie Ware, Kylie Minogue and Lady Gaga hasn’t stopped manifesting in today’s music releases just yet.
Case in point: Sigrid, 24-year-old Norwegian “Strangers” singer-songwriter sensation and BBC Sound of 2018 winner, who returned to us on Wednesday (May 26) with “Mirror,” a shimmering new single following her 2019 record, Sucker Punch.
Back in 2020, Sigrid was on a flight returning to Norway after working in LA on her follow-up when she began to pen what would be her latest, self-empowered single. She’d later bring the tune to Denmark to finish it with songwriters Emily Warren and Caroline Ailin – both of whom wrote Dua’s “Don’t Start Now,” among other smashes – and producer Sly, who just did Dua’s “We’re Good.” (Basically, a very Future Nostalgia-inducing songwriting experience.)
Like “Don’t Start Now,” the strut-ready, disco string and piano-laden track is all about walking away from a relationship, only to find a fierce, renewed sense of self-assurance on the other side: “I needed loneliness to know there’s nothing that I can’t turn into confidence / I couldn’t play pretend, and I’m sorry that you had to pay the consequences,” she declares.
“It had to break, I had to go, ’cause it took me walking away to really know.”
The song comes with a music video directed by Femke Huurdeman of CANADA (the Spanish production company that did “Malamente” for Rosalía and, yes, Dua’s “Physical”), and it’s a big win for fans of floofy dresses, iguanas, archery and dancing out the demons at home.
“We wanted to explore how conflicting it can feel to have different sides of yourself competing against each other, and not working together. And as I can’t stand still whilst singing, there’s a lot of dancing, running, driving – you can tell I had a great time on the shoot,” Sigrid says of the clip.
“It can be quite liberating to reinvent yourself after getting out of a relationship. This journey of finding your core, coming to terms with who you are and radiating this from oneself is at the heart of the concept of the video. For me, it’s always important to showcase a 3-dimensional image of a character. We built together on a language of movements, and different moods for each scene, all rooted in Sigrid’s own style of performing. She can be empowering, humorous, sensitive, playful, captivating and bold, and that’s something I think you can feel throughout the video,” director Femke adds.
It’s not easy to deliver an ode to unwavering self-confidence without coming across as cheesy or cliché, but Sigrid’s found just the right sweet spot to have us all confidently winking at our reflections in the disco ball at the reopened clubs this summer.
