“Don’t believe love is how we’ve seen it described in the movies,” Hanne Mjøen tells American Songwriter.
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For the Norwegian alt-pop artist, love has never quite been the magical fairytale the silver screen promised it’d be. But thankfully, Mjøen’s been able to navigate the choppy waters of intimacy and modern romance and stay afloat thanks to an invaluable tool: songwriting.
“Songwriting is a kind of therapy,” she says. “I am bad at talking about how I feel, so putting it in a song is a much easier way to get stuff off my chest. I love puzzling words together and finding different and new ways to say things that have already been said.”
It was that act of getting “stuff of [her] chest” that led Mjøen to write her catchy new single, “Emotional Fever.” Dropped August 5, the tune features her signature confessional style in an energetic pop setting, complete with an array of synths and a chorus hook that’ll blissfully get stuck in your head for days.
“I wanted to describe how it feels to have mixed feelings about someone, going from a moment of ‘forever’ to a moment filled with the need to run away,” Mjøen explains of the song. Tying it back in with her above warning against expecting things to be like the movies, she adds, “Love’s not real, and it’s not likely to always be 100% devoted to the person you are dating. It might take a while to develop trust and at some point, you just have to decide if you wanna try to be in a relationship or not.”
Coming ahead of her debut EP—itself titled Emotional Fever, due September 17—the production on the single is indicative of Mjøen’s thoughtful approach. Through its three minutes and 16 seconds, the song builds to numerous euphoric peaks, then drops to chilling valleys only to build again, creating a sense of tension and release that keeps the engine running the whole way through. With layers of her anthemic harmonies over top, the end product is nothing short of pop perfection.
With her debut collection of tunes on its way and new songs always in the works, “Emotional Fever” is still just the beginning for Mjøen. From the quality of her writing to the precision of her aesthetic (see the music video below), it’s clear that she’s got a lot more to offer the international music scene. “I’m very excited to share this with the world,” she concludes.
Hanne Mjøen’s debut EP Emotional Fever is out September 17—watch the music video for the single “Emotional Fever” below:
