Swedish House Mafia & Knife Party’s festival anthem ‘Antidote’ turns 9 years old

Who remembers where dance music was in 2011? After a few years in the doldrums in the late 00s, where even in places like the UK you had the likes of BBC Radio 1 dropping most of their dance music programming, by the time the 2010s rolled around the new and exciting prospect of “big room” was king. Dance music finally had taken a proper foothold in America, massive international festivals were getting bigger and bigger, DJs were become superstars in ways that made the 90s seem like a quaint garden party, and driving dance music into the mainstream were the “EDM” stars who were even seeing their music played on daytime radio. Among the biggest players of the time were of course the legendary Swedish House Mafia, and now their anthem and crowd favourite Antidote turns 9.

Always a major force in any SHM live set, ‘Antidote’ set the tone with something of a more frantic and darker take on the popular “bright and cheery radio-friendly EDM” anthems of the time. Teaming up with Knife Party, the track had something of an electro feel to it, with an almost dubstep inspired bassline, not to mention plenty of grit and drive. There was still that classic big room build and drop however, and this is what made the track a firm crowd-favourite. Indeed this was still the case when the trio reformed last year for their long-awaited and massively hyped reunion tour. Antidote normally fell roughly half way through their set, and made use of just how far live SFX have come in the past several years, with a massive barrage of fire and flames that you can see from their Creamfields 2019 set below.

Image Credit: Rukes.com