SKAAR: Medicine
Self-Released Via The Orchard Nordics
Out Now
Three minutes of Norwegian excellence and a recent winner of her home country’s Grammys, this new single is a pop anthem of rare old school brilliance. MK Bennett gets on board.
Pop currently finds itself in a bit of a pickle because pop is second guessing itself. Blame Taylor Swift, or more accurately, blame self-appointed cultural commentators attempting to decide whether her new album is an acceptable commodification of self, while her fans write Substack posts about feeling betrayed, hoping to go viral. Pops’ tricky and sometimes doomed balance is to reflect and/or uplift depending on myriad factors. It is no accident that Abba’s emergence into superstardom happened when it did, a flash of Nordic alien colour in a grey world, strikes and power cuts and beige foodstuff.
SKAAR’s latest does not second guess itself; it’s a supremely confident slice of beauteous, glacial pop music, produced by the musical accumulation of Max Martin’s back catalogue and then supercharged into huge slabs of synthesized rock. The main riff/chorus is so monolithic you could knock it down and build apartments on it. It bears resemblance to the olde-worlde popstar goes rock motif of Michael Jackson’s Dirty Diana, with its undoubtedly pop foundations and rock overlay.
It starts with some big drums before that massive riff kicks the door in, accented by some beautific choral backing in case it needed to sound any bigger, before it settles into a calmer verse. Building into the chorus, the main vocal cleverly remains low while the backing vocals of “You reap what you sew“ are more emotional, more insistent as it drops back into the riff, already a hook you’ll recognise. It’s a smart arrangement, with the riff constantly circling back via the bass or the guitar, and it makes something previously unheard immediately recognisable long before the song is even halfway. It’s subtle but extremely effective.
Of the song, SKAAR herself says, “‘Medicine’ is about struggling to be happy in a new relationship cause you’re feeling guilty about someone you’ve hurt in the past. You start believing you’re a bad person who deserves punishment, so the only logical outcome is that the new person you love will hurt you. It’s not if, it’s when. You’ll taste your own medicine.”
The song’s brilliance lies in that chameleon-esque shift, that sure-footed knowledge that it could fit in a Nova Twins playlist or a Charli XCX playlist and sit comfortably in either. Understandably, the only difference in the arrangement from hereon is the guitar solo, which again is a nostalgic delight, and the heightened improvisation over the outro. There’s no need to change it; it’s a miniature three minute treasure box, an already perfect artefact.
The lyrics are all about the karmic possibility of getting what you give, or at least guilt becoming sabotage and a self-fulfilling prophecy, though even this is cleverly edited to give a different inference, with the coda running, “I’ll get a taste of my own..” while the backing vocals add the “Medicine“. The whole thing is incredibly well thought out and put together. Catch it if you can.
SKAAR’s Instagram | Facebook | TikTok
All words by MK Bennett, you can find his author’s archive here plus his Twitter and Instagram
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