Vargas & Lagola

Having each carved out careers as accomplished solo performers and Grammy recipients, Salem Al Fakir and Vincent Pontare pooled their talents during the 2010s to establish the commanding songwriting partnership Vargas & Lagola. Prior to that step they had composed material for an array of acts ranging from Avicii to Madonna, then began issuing their own recordings under the joint name, a trajectory that reached its first full-length milestone with the January 2020 arrival of The Butterfly Effect.

Building on the momentum of their individual paths, the pair concentrated on behind-the-scenes work in the early part of the decade. Al Fakir forged a productive alliance with Avicii that yielded the 2012 single “Silhouettes,” while Pontare contributed to notable successes such as Swedish House Mafia’s “Save the World.” Their initial standout joint composition, Avicii’s “Hey Brother,” earned platinum certifications in multiple territories, including a 7x Platinum designation in Sweden. The two quickly developed a fluent creative rapport, extending their contributions to Seinabo Sey’s “Younger” and Veronica Maggio’s Handen i fickan fast jag bryr mig; the latter project earned them the Composer of the Year prize at the 2014 Swedish Grammis.

Throughout the middle of the decade their services remained in demand, encompassing Madonna’s Rebel Heart, Axwell & Ingrosso’s “More Than You Know” and “Dreamer,” Ghost’s Prequelle, and Mapei’s Hey Hey. By the latter half of the 2010s, however, they redirected their focus toward independent releases. The first of these appeared in 2017 with the singles “Rolling Stone” and “Sun Is Shining,” signaling a move into alternative pop territory. That shift produced the gold-certified 2018 track “Roads,” followed in 2019 and 2020 by “Shores” and “Somebody That Understands Me,” setting the stage for The Butterfly Effect. The album gathered the duo’s buoyant and stylistically broad pop approach into a unified statement.