Mr Little Jeans

Norwegian dance-pop singer and songwriter Monica Birkenes performs under the stage name Mr. Little Jeans. She selected that alias in 2009, right after completing her initial batch of demos, borrowing it from a minor character in Wes Anderson’s 1998 movie Rushmore. Once her renditions of familiar Beyoncé and Arcade Fire tracks drew widespread attention on YouTube and SoundCloud, she shifted focus to original material and secured placements on series such as Gossip Girl along with films including Celeste and Jesse Forever and Iron Man 3. Employing a synth-driven dance-pop approach reminiscent of Kylie Minogue and Lykke Li, she signed with EMI’s Harvest Records imprint in 2013. After moving to Los Angeles to compose and track her debut album, she issued the Good Mistake EP in February 2014 and followed it one month later with the full-length Pocketknife. Teaming again with longtime collaborator Tim Anderson, Birkenes resurfaced in 2016 on the Nettwerk label with the subsequent EP Fevers.