From “I Love It” to the Question of What Comes After
For many listeners, Icona Pop are still the “I Love It” band, frozen in the moment when their 2013 smash turned them into festival staples and party-playlist fixtures. That era branded Caroline Hjelt and Aino Jawo as carefree club anarchists, experts at bottling chaos into chants and drops. But the duo have now spent nearly two decades as friends and collaborators, and the shadow of that song has grown long. Even as they toured and released music, their identity in mainstream pop was often reduced to a single, indestructible hook. Their upcoming project, the Icona Pop new album titled Ritual, arrives as their most deliberate response yet: a refusal to let their legacy be defined by one hit and an attempt to answer a tougher question—where does a pop duo go once the confetti has settled and real life takes over.
Heartbreak, Grief and the Personal Cracks Behind the Ritual Era
The Icona Pop Ritual era was born not from clubs but from collapse. Jawo was grieving the death of her grandmother while navigating the physical and emotional upheaval of welcoming a second child. She describes weeks spent in bed, constantly sick, realizing she could no longer force herself into the role of the “super cool, party pop star girl” when social situations triggered deep anxiety and exhaustion. Hjelt, meanwhile, was working through a divorce, suddenly confronted with long stretches of time alone. Both women reached breaking points where motherhood, heartbreak and identity collided. Instead of pressing ahead as if nothing had changed, they stepped back from the duo, choosing—eventually and consciously—to “choose Icona Pop again.” That decision reframes Icona Pop heartbreak not as a narrative detour, but as the emotional engine driving their reset.
A Studio Sanctuary and Songs That Stop Hiding the Pain
Ritual is the first Icona Pop new album made entirely in their own studio, a space they slowly turned into a creative sanctuary. Surrounded by trusted collaborators like producers Sebastian Furrer and Jason Gill, co-writers including Ines Dunn and Erik Hassle, and close friends Tove Lo and Daya, they built an environment where honesty could eclipse image. Icona Pop have always excelled at disguising heartbreak in euphoric hooks, but this time, as Jawo puts it, they decided, “fuck that. Let’s just go hard.” The title track revolves around the tiny daily habits—walks, coffees, the courage to step outside—that helped Jawo crawl back from burnout and grief. Hjelt, encouraged by Tove Lo to mine her diary, pushed herself into raw confession, even triggering a near panic attack while demoing a song about “brutal acceptance” in the aftermath of divorce. The sound is still cathartic, but the gloss no longer hides the wound.
Escaping the One-Hit Trap and Redefining the Pop Duo Playbook
Trying to out-run a monster hit is one of the hardest tasks in pop. For a duo like Icona Pop, the challenge is doubled: they must safeguard not just a brand, but a friendship that predates their charts success. The Ritual era is their attempt to solve both problems at once. By foregrounding maturity, vulnerability and self-awareness, they’re refusing the easy route of endlessly recreating “I Love It.” Instead, they’re betting on a narrative of resilience—two women who stepped away to survive and then chose to rebuild together. In doing so, they tap into a broader trend of pop duo reinvention and pop artists using personal turmoil as a creative catalyst, shaping leaner, more emotionally exposed records. If Ritual connects, it could shift how audiences answer the question of “I Love It band now,” reframing Icona Pop not as one-hit relics, but as veterans writing a braver second act.