Tove Lo on the “epic dance moment” in her new single ‘I like u’

‘I like u’ follows on from Tove Lo’s fifth album ‘Dirt Femme’, which arrived in October 2022, and her recent single ‘Borderline’, which was co-written with Dua Lipa.

Speaking to NME about her latest track, Tove Lo said that she wanted “to make another song that was in the vein of the ‘90s [and] Y2K-era dance music” that similarly inspired her previous single ‘2 Die 4’. Working with producer Timfromthehouse – who previously worked with Tove Lo on several tracks on ‘Dirt Femme’ – on the song between tours, she explained that the producer “worked on the track without me for a long time” before eventually finding “the perfect way to make the melodies shine, and dared to make it not the classic pop arrangement”.

“We tried a bunch of different ways, and I was just like, ‘No, this is the way – it needs to be this epic dance moment before you get the chorus melody,’” she added to NME of the tune’s untraditional structure.

Further inspired by “what was going through my head” the first time she ever saw her husband, Tove Lo said that she views ‘I like u’ as being part of the ‘Dirt Femme’ world: “Obviously it’s going more in the direction of the dance stuff I’ve done, but I still think it ties into what I’ve been writing about on this album.”

Asked if ‘I like u’ might feature on a future re-release of ‘Dirt Femme’, Tove Lo replied: “The deluxe [version] is coming, it’s just, like, [going to be] a little bit later. But it’s coming, for sure.” You can listen to Tove Lo’s ‘I like u’ below.

After experiencing writer’s block while initially working on ‘Dirt Femme’, Tove Lo told NME that she is currently feeling very creatively inspired – though that doesn’t necessarily mean that a new record is on the way.

“I couldn’t have imagined [‘Dirt Femme’] being received so amazingly,” she said. “It felt so special and it really deepened the connection with my fans. I think I’m going to need to take quite a long time to write the next [album] just because I will need to harvest that much inspiration.”

Having previously written with the likes of Dua Lipa, Lorde and Ellie Goulding, Tove Lo also told NME about her future songwriting plans: “I’m thinking I might just be writing a lot for other people for a while and trying to get back into that head space, as I love doing that. But that said, I think I’ve said that many times and then I still end up making my own record, so we’ll see.”

One artist who Tove Lo is hoping to collaborate with is Sia, who tweeted the former back in February to say that she “wished I’d written ‘Heroes (We Could Be)’” (Tove Lo’s 2014 collaboration with Alesso), before adding that she “would love to collaborate” with the Swedish artist.

.@Sia 🥹 my heart jumped reading this! It’s been a dream of mine to write with you for so long, literally in every interview I talk about it, this made my day 💗 let’s do iiiiit https://t.co/sKKDJ9NXTl

— Tove Lo (@ToveLo) February 7, 2023

“We’ve been in touch: we’re trying to find a time when we’re both in the same place, which is tricky,” Tove Lo told NME about the possibility of working with Sia. “I feel like that’s going to happen when time allows.

“I can’t believe that [tweet] actually: I was shocked and so excited. She’s got an incredible voice, and I think she has amazing lyrics with these very powerful melodies. She can put this very universal, really strong emotion that people think they’re the only ones feeling into one very clear sentence in a super-powerful, strong melody that’s euphoric, but there’s still pain there. It’s a really amazing ability to make you feel like the song is just for you, but still like it’s [for] the world.”

Earlier this month Tove Lo released ‘Dirt Femme (Stripped)’, a new collection of stripped-back renditions of tracks from her most recent LP. Having initially been asked by her fans to record a series of a cappella and acoustic versions of songs from ‘Dirt Femme’, Tove Lo went about fulfilling that request until she came to a realisation.

“All of a sudden, I had pretty much the whole album acoustic. And then I was just like, ‘Why don’t I put these out?’” she told NME. “They’re very raw, in the moment recordings. There’s something to hearing the melody and lyrics in that way, it gives the song a different life.”

Last weekend, Tove Lo joined Duran Duran on stage during their set at BottleRock Napa Valley festival in California to perform ‘GIVE IT ALL UP’, which featured on the band’s 2021 album ‘Future Past’. The performance marked the first time the two artists had performed the track together, after having only met in person the day before the festival to ensure that they “didn’t meet for the first time on stage”.

Simon + @ToveLo + @BottleRockNapa = “Give it All Up” live pic.twitter.com/dhhuImB1ux

— Duran Duran (@duranduran) May 28, 2023

“[We] ran through [the song] a few times [in rehearsal], and when we were singing it together I was like, ‘Holy fucking shit! Oh yeah that’s his voice! That’s Simon Le Bon!’” Tove Lo recalled to NME. “When I walked out [on stage the next day], I had this moment of like, I almost forgot what I was doing there as it was so surreal seeing them all on stage and [thinking], ‘Hang on a second…’

“My parents used to listen to Duran Duran so much when I was growing up, so all of a sudden [I was] getting thrown back to all of these memories from my childhood. It was so cool, and I love ‘GIVE IT ALL UP’, I think that song’s amazing. So yeah, it was very special.”

Tove Lo will play a host of festival shows this summer, including a slot at London’s All Point East Festival in August on a day that will be headlined by Haim. Asked by NME what her fans can expect from these shows, Tove Lo said: “I’m pretty sure I play an hour, so it’ll be an hour of power. It’ll be emotional dance music, and I’ll just leave it all on the floor. Get ready!”