#Weekendvibe It's Official! How to Let Go from Sigrid is finally out!
(May 6, 2022) Learning how to let go is at the heart of Sigrid’s highly anticipated second album, How To Let Go, out today on Island Records. Written over a period in intense self-reflection during the pandemic, How To Let Go is a masterpiece in pop alchemy. Taking Sigrid’s renowned powerhouse vocal and immediate pop hooks through a new lens of live instrumentation and experimental production, the follow up to 2019’s Sucker Punch is an exploration into anthemic pop soundscapes, and all written for Sigrid’s defining happy place: the stage. Over the past five years we have witnessed an alternative pop star who has won critical acclaim, countless awards and accolades, toured the globe, and sold more than 100,000 records on her debut, but has always stayed true to her Norwegian roots and made us feel both comfort and escapism in an ever changing, unsure landscape. Already described as “a perfect summer listen” (Who What Wear), How To Let Go features the self-love summer disco tune “Mirror,” the dance-like-no-one-is-watching “Burning Bridges,” the thundering powerhouse “It Gets Dark,” and the recent colossal collaboration with UK rock band Bring Me The Horizon, “Bad Life.” Today, “A Driver Saved My Night” is the latest song to be lifted from How To Let Go, an epic dance-synth tune inspired by the kindness of strangers and that moment when all you need is a taxi home; “you’re never alone when you listen to music,” says Sigrid.
“The concept of 'how to let go' is the thread that runs through the album and through my life – just letting go of things you say, of people that have hurt you, or situations where I have been stupid. Life is about letting go and moving on. It sounds so simple, but it never is.” - Sigrid
Writing huge pop songs from the heart with that rasp and recalling great vocalists from Stevie Nicks to Carole King and Freddie Mercury, since Sigrid’s ascent to pop stardom in 2017, the 25-year-old has achieved every accolade a young artist from a small town off the coast of Norway could ever have imagined. Sigrid has lit up stages with her non-conformist and progressive attitudes to the femininity in pop. Sigrid has become renowned for her high-energy live shows, writing anthemic chorus’ for festivals that would become her definitive stage. It’s no surprise that the only place Sigrid feels truly she can take out “all those emotions” is performing live with her band.
The 12-track LP How To Let Go was written at a time where Sigrid was thinking a lot about her life in Norway and her life outside of Norway. “They're two different things. The chill girl who loves to ski and hike and cook versus the other part of me that's like ‘let's go out’, or let's play massive shows, go on stage and not be scared of anything. I used to be so shy as a kid but then when I'm on stage at Glastonbury for example I love losing myself in it.” Sigrid comments that sometimes those personalities clash and you get confused about what makes you thrive in life, wanting both parts but realizing sometimes they don’t always align. This sense of differing perspectives and looking at the same thing from a new angle, is reflected in the amazingly surrealist video for “It Gets Dark,” which was made with “Mirror” director Femke Huurdeman and CANADA (Dua Lipa, Rosalia), featuring Sigrid escaping to space.
“[‘It Gets Dark] is an illuminating, cinematic pop banger” - Consequence
This year has been an important time of collaboration for Sigrid. Having met Griff at a fashion show, the two pop stars bonded over pizza and their experience in the music industry and got in the studio and wrote the mighty firecracker "Head on Fire," which won the Best Collaboration at the NME Awards 2022. Another chance meeting with Bring Me The Horizon backstage at Reading Festival, led to vocalist Oli Sykes and keyboardist Jordan Fish sending a demo to Sigrid - both being fans of each other’s music - they all got in the studio to lay down lyrics, and the tear-stained rock ballad “Bad Life” was born. “It tells the story of when things are rough and it can feel like you're never going to stop feeling sad,” says Sigrid, with searingly beautiful lyrics, “It’s just a bad day, not a bad life.” Pairing the Norwegian pop sensation’s uplifting power-house choruses with Bring Me The Horizon’s ability to capture intense emotion, the song is a mighty allegory for taking struggles with mental health day by day. The video, directed by Raja Verdi (Holly Humberstone, Celeste) takes the viewers through an epic storm of emotion, showing both festival favorite performers Sigrid and Oli powerfully moving through inner turmoil: "The concept for this one-shot film was to lean into the themes of having to get through the bad to eventually reach the other side - life can certainly feel like a rollercoaster sometimes,” says Raja.
With 1.4 billion global streams and over 1 million global album unit sales, and the success of pop-dance anthem “Strangers,” Sigrid returned to the world stage in 2021 with the “empowerment anthem” (ELLE) “Mirror,” followed by the ABBA-inspired synth banger “Burning Bridges,” which showed Sigrid’s immense pop song-writing talent. Then, having sound-tracked the BBC Olympic closing montage with her stunning ballad "Home To You," the pop star released the "Home To You (This Christmas)" version, spellbinding families at home over the holidays with an incredible Top Of The Pops performance, and cementing Sigrid’s position as the ‘voice’ in alt-pop.