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Hanne Mjøen is not your average pop queen. The Norwegian alt/pop artist creates music that makes you want to dance, with lyrics that make you want to cry. Her intoxicating sound is coated in a dark, raw edge, providing a comforting reminder that it’s ok to be flawed, while her lyrics pull the trigger for an outlet of pent-up emotions.
Mjøen is just a small-town girl, living in a lonely world. The child of a hairdresser and a salesman, she came of age in Oppdal, a small mountain village. She had never dreamt of becoming a pop star. All she wanted to do was to sing and write songs, and hopefully, have them make an emotional connection with someone out there. Pop music as a genre – with its booming choruses, spine-tingling chord progressions and lyrics about love, longing and betrayal – not its popularity, was what had appealed to her.
In her highly-anticipated new chapter, Mjøen describes the stages and struggles you go through being in a relationship. Feeling happy with the love, but unhappy with putting yourself in second place. She fell in love but fell apart as well. This is her journey to find the strength to say it as it is, after keeping the truth from herself for so long, and she is taking you with her on this journey. Returning with her highly anticipated EP Fall In Love / Apart, she brings euphony-flowing fables to life with the flourishing energy she continues to possess so brightly.
Exploring tribulations of love and loss, tunes “Distance” and “I Never Told You” unite with pounding basslines and soaring synthesizers that would find a home on any dancefloor. Mjøen confides, ”I have a bad habit of distancing myself from people as soon as I feel like I’m not being seen. Talking about how I feel isn’t something I do naturally, and I start acting out and changing desperately to get a confrontation, and then forcing myself to speak about it to defend my actions. It’s a very bad way of handling things, but in my head, it feels more natural to cut the tires than to fix them. “Distant” is describing the desperation you feel when people can’t see the way you’re trying to tell them that something is wrong.”
Followed by “Bad For My Health” and “Hard to Love”, she brings her narratives to life with the intricacy listeners continue to adore. She continues, ”Hard To Love tells the tale of being a complex person. Everyone has bad sides and struggles and through the lyrics I wanted to put mine on the table, letting the one you love know that if you want a love of eternal sunshine, I’ll give you the opposite. I’ll make it hard for you to love me cause, unfortunately, I’m not a perfect person either.” Featuring artist Ryland James, he adds, “Working on “Hard To Love was a really beautiful experience. This type of collaboration isn’t something I’ve ever been part of as an artist and to be able to help bring Hanne’s vision to life by lending my voice to it is quite special. I’ve been through this feeling many times in my relationships with people close to me, and I think it’s something the vast majority of the population also feels at some point or another during the course of their lives. Sometimes it’s nice to know you’re not the only one in the world who can feel unloveable or difficult to handle from time to time. It’s a very normal part of the human experience.”
Mjøen’s unapologetic authenticity and humbling resonance come to life in Fall In Love / Apart with enthralling musicality. Her next musical project shows the admirable strength that can result from vulnerability.
To date, her music has garnered over 23 million streams, receiving airplay in over 25 countries worldwide, including Annie Mac and BBC Radio 1. In 2021 she was the 7th most-played artist on Norwegian radio and has been praised by the likes of Rolling Stone, The Line Of Best Fit, Paper Mag, Wonderland Mag, 1883 Mag and many more. 2023 is set to be an explosive year for Hanne Mjøen, with a bonus EP track set to drop in the new year too!
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