In a week where otherwise sentient grown-ups talked of little else except Miley Cyrus's arse, this Icona Pop gig feels like an antidote. Out there, all is sexploitation and unsisterly behaviour; in here, all is reassuringly perky. The Swedish duo may be jumping up and down in a tiny basement club in Shoreditch, but these two self-starting DJs turned pop stars have had a worldwide smash hit in I Love It, which eventually went to No 1 in the UK in July, after an illustrious 2012 in most other charts. Their imminent album, This Is…. Icona Pop, out in the UK on 4 November, piles gleeful Euro-pop banger on to singalonga anthem. There is the realistic expectation that more hits could follow.
In flesh as in song, Caroline Hjelt (red hair) and Aino Jawo (tattoos) are grinning, happy-go-lucky hedonists who make partying all night seem like something suitable for the under-10s, rather than the sleazy, nihilist debauchery of a session with Miley Cyrus or Rihanna. They may appear starkers on the cover of their album – arms covering each other's modesty – but tonight they're wearing retro-futurist micro-dresses in black and white, like Twiggy in space rather than Miley on demolition duty. Throughout, Icona Pop exude a very Scandinavian matter-of-factness about enjoying themselves. Virtually every song in their exuberant 14-song set is about having an amazing time – see All Night, or Ready for the Weekend, or We Got the World – or, indeed, how much they enjoy each other's company.
Girlfriend is a love song from one Icona to another. "All I need in this life of sin/Is me and my girlfriend," they chant, throwing an arm over each other's shoulders. This is commercial pop music about sisterly good times, made by women with, perhaps, just a little help from a couple of men. The song references a Tupac Shakur track, Me and My Girlfriend, about the rapper's love for his gun. Icona Pop wrote to Tupac's mother, Afeni (a deeply interesting woman herself), to ask permission for the sample, one familiar from Jay Z and Beyoncé's '03 Bonnie & Clyde.
Pop 2.0 is a highly collaborative process. The writing and production credits on Icona Pop's songs belie the input of industrial Scandi-pop behemoths such as Stargate (Rihanna, Beyoncé, et al) and Shellback (Pink, Taylor Swift); their No 1, I Love It, was actually penned by British songstress Charli XCX and given some lift by Patrik Berger, who had a hand in Robyn's Dancing on My Own.
This is all audible gloss. If there is a downside to Icona Pop, it's that their latest music is of a piece with all the other arena pop out there. They knit together obvious builds, "woah-oh-oh"s, and pace their songs where 90s techno-pop meets the urge to pogo. Their older, non-album songs – such as Nights Like This, with its looped, cascading vocals, or Good for You – are actually far more nuanced and intriguing.
But Icona Pop's charms are infectious. Hjelt brandishes a kazoo at the start of Then We Kiss, a track that owes more to bubblegum pop than the hegemonic rave-wave. There are multiple skill sets on show here. Although Icona Pop prefer to chant, they can sing – Jawo ends a love-gone-wrong song, Just Another Night, with a long, sustained syllable. Hjelt, meanwhile, can balance a can of beer on her forehead. Jawo sometimes plays guitar; the two constantly tweak their gear, mostly located under a pyramid in the middle of the stage. Of course, I Love It is the grand finale – a tune about post-break-up recklessness that has soundtracked two summers. You leave feeling a hell of a lot happier about the state of pop than when you went in.
