Selma Eriksen’s 'Big Break' Was Just the Beginning

Selma Eriksen’s discography has grown up alongside her.

Some of her earliest songs were written when she was only 13 or 14 years old. Now, at 18, Eriksen can hear that evolution in real time, from the nostalgic indie-pop of her earliest releases to the darker alternative sound of recent songs like “Love Me” and “SOS.”

“It’s just a no-brainer that I was bound to transform and change from 13 years old writing ‘Vinyl’ to 18 writing ‘Love Me,’” Eriksen said. “It’s kind of special… being able to track a progression of myself through a streaming platform.”

Eriksen began releasing music at 15 with “By Now,” which she had written around a year earlier. Her second release, “Vinyl,” dated back even further, having been written when she was only 13. Together, those songs capture different versions of an artist who has been writing throughout some of the most formative years of her life.

“I definitely am becoming a more authentic version of myself,” Eriksen said. “Obviously, I don’t want to discredit the fact that this was what I was feeling at that age… but I definitely feel the most connected to the music I’m making now.”

Recently, that has meant leaning further into alternative rock, drawing from music and aesthetics Eriksen has gravitated toward since she was young.

“I think I’ve kind of been too scared to tap into that out of fear that it wouldn’t be authentic,” Eriksen said. “But then the more I tried and the more I wrote within that world, it felt so me.”

Her listeners have noticed the evolution too.

“I had a fan DM me and be like, ‘I love that you’re going from this lover girl era to this evil dark fairy era,’” Eriksen said. “And I was like, ‘Yes. Sweet.’”

It is a fitting description for a shift that feels less like a reinvention and more like Eriksen settling further into herself. The darker visuals and rock influences surrounding her newer music are not an aesthetic she picked up overnight.

“It’s not this new thing that I’m doing because it’s trending,” she said. “It’s something that has stuck with me since I was little… It is me. It’s not a brand I’m trying to pursue.”

That same sense of instinct carries into Eriksen’s songwriting. She keeps words, phrases and ideas in her notes app, almost like a diary she can pull from when something begins to take shape. Sometimes she walks into a session with a song already written. Other times, she thrives on the energy of creating alongside other musicians.

Years after Eriksen first started writing, one of her earliest releases unexpectedly became her biggest breakthrough yet.

Around a year after its release, “By Now” found a new audience online. An instagram reel Eriksen posted using the track reached around 8 million views, bringing the song to listeners far beyond the audience she initially knew.

It marked Eriksen’s biggest breakthrough so far, but she is nowhere near finished. If anything, the success of “By Now” has given her more room to keep exploring what comes next.

As her audience has grown, some of the moments that have stayed with Eriksen most have been the personal ones. Listeners have reached out to tell her where her songs have fit into their own lives. One person even told her that one of her songs was the reason two people started dating.

“Things like that are so special,” Eriksen said. “They make you realize that, like, oh, I have an actual impact on someone’s life, and that’s enough to keep going.”

That growing audience has not changed Eriksen’s instinct to follow her own ideas. If anything, pursuing music professionally has reinforced the importance of trusting herself.

“Do it yourself,” Eriksen said. “If you have a vision and you trust yourself, fulfill that and put it into your own hands because only you know yourself what you want and how to get it done.”

For Eriksen, figuring out what comes next does not mean arriving at one fixed version of herself. She sees being an artist as something fluid that will continue evolving with her.

“I can say truthfully I haven’t found one hundred percent who I am as an artist because I think it’s an ever-evolving process,” Eriksen said.

Right now, she wants to deepen her understanding of her sound and what she has to say, while creating something listeners can fully immerse themselves in.

“I want to create a world around my music that invites other people in so they can live in that world with me,” Eriksen said. “That’s my favorite thing about discovering an artist. You listen to a song and feel like you’re stepping into their world and resonating with their experiences.”

Eriksen hopes to keep performing live, eventually open for another artist and continue finding the people who connect with what she is creating. Her idea of another big break is less about recreating the success of “By Now” and more about reaching the people who understand the direction she is moving in.

“I think that’d be the coolest thing,” Eriksen said, “if people found my music as something that they didn’t know they needed."

For Eriksen, “By Now” may have been the song that introduced her to a much larger audience, but it captured who she was years ago. The music she is making now offers a better glimpse of the artist she is becoming.