- Electronic Dance Music (EDM) producers/duo, formed in 2012, from Stockholm Sweden. The members are Christian Karlsson and Linus Eklow (aka Style of Eye). Karlsson has co-written and co-produced songs for many artists, including Katy Perry, Madonna and Jennifer Lopez. His song Toxic by Britney Spears earned him a Grammy award. Eklow has collaborated with stars such as Usher, Kylie Minogue, and Zedd. He co-wrote the 2012 mega-hit I Love It, by Icona Pop, which has had over 4 million downloads since its release.
- The duo met in 2007, when Karlsson asked Eklow to remix one of Karlsson’s songs. They became friends, and for several years they experimented with different sound ideas – but nothing was considered song worthy. In 2012, they decided to abandon the typical electronic music approach of using software to create all of the music. Instead, they started with Karlsson’s usual technique of beginning a song with a guitar or piano. From there, they would build up the song with keyboards, drums and vocals, incorporating catchy hooks into the music.
- They signed with a record company in 2013, and they began to work on songs, incorporating creative song writing with the big energy of electronic music. Their first single was Smile, followed by You. These established their place in the EDM genre.
- By mid-2014, they released an EP of 5 songs that included Smile and You. Then, that fall, they released the single Runaway (U & I), which has sold over 1 million downloads in the U.S. The studio album Pharmacy was released in June 2015 – this album contains 13 songs, including Runaway (U & I) and You. This album peaked at #1 on the Billboard Top Dance/Electronic Albums chart, and reached #45 on the Billboard 200 chart.
- In 2016, they released the single No Money, which was their first to chart on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, reaching #88. This song landed in the top 10 on charts in many European countries – the U.S. has been slower to embrace EDM music as compared to Europe. Apparently, it’s popular – YouTube views of No Money total over 300 million.
- More singles have followed – Love On Me, Pillow Fight and Rich Boy were released over the last 10 months.
- Galantis has also made remixes of other artists work – most notably, a remix of Ed Sheeran’s Shape Of You (Sheeran’s original song, released in January this year, has sold over 10 million copies, has been streamed on Spotify over 1 billion times, and has been watched on YouTube over 1.4 billion times – one of the most dominant songs of the past 25 years).
- Maybe you don’t like electronic music. I do – I got hooked on it back in the “progressive rock” days of the 70s, finding several artists that took the synthesizer sound to unique places. The computer has changed the game in today’s world, creating a driving, crisp, huge sound that is infectious. Galantis is an important part of this growing movement. Here’s their video No Money – I’m tapping my foot to the beat still.