Welcome to Sleeper Hit Support Group, a new column diving into the song currently occupying the bottom spot of the Billboard Hot 100.

In a pop landscape that asks more questions that it answers, I'm setting out to answer three questions about each of these songs: how it got here, if the song is good, and where it's going. In this 100th spot we'll find unlikely ascents, falls from grace, and resurgences of hits from bygone eras.

Today, we're taking a look at the remix of PinkPantheress' "Stateside" featuring Zara Larsson.

How did it get here?

PinkPantheress (real name Victoria Walker, not "beep") is a silent killer. The 24 year old British singer-songwriter blew up on TikTok when she was still a teenager, but her musical roots stem even further back.

She was the lead singer in a pop punk cover band as a teenager (something now impossible to believe from her signature hushed vocal delivery) and started making beats on GarageBand when she was 17. Her first big break came in December 2020 when a snippet of her Michael Jackson-sampling song "Just A Waste" went viral on TikTok, with two other songs that would end up on her 2021 debut mixtape to hell with it going viral soon afterwards. In April of 2021, she signed to Warner imprint Parlophone, but would climb the label ladder as her career continued.

Pink's musical philosophy of no song needing to exceed ~2.5 minutes has proven immeasurably effective in the TikTok/streaming era, as the sub-two-minute Mura Masa-produced "Just for Me" also gained significant traction on the app. For measure, TikTok is mentioned 23 times on her Wikipedia page. If Lil Nas X is the progenitor of the TikTok-to-Grammy-winner pipeline, PinkPantheress is the primogeniture. In a 2021 interview with The Standard, Walker said "I was literally like, if Lil Nas X became successful in the space of one song that got big on TikTok then anyone can do this... Respectfully."

That mentality has gotten her quite far. Beyond her well-crafted social media presence, Walker keeps finding herself in the right place at the right time. While remaining a big name in her native UK, her first charting crossover hit in the US was "Boy's a liar Pt. 2", which peaked at #3 in March of 2023 and remained on the chart for 22 weeks. In hindsight, it's clear the primary driver of this single was Ice Spice in her (short-lived) prime.

Before she was reduced to poop jokes and taking stray checks from Nickelodeon, her flash in the pan in late 2022 and early 2023 burned bright. The nonchalance in the delivery of her verse blends impeccably well with the simplicity of PinkPantheress' earlier work.

As exemplified in "Boy's a liar" especially, Pink has a penchant for sticky hooks. Her melodies both highlight the golden spots of her range and are easy for the average person to sing along to, whether it's the repetition of the title in the chorus or the bouncy "good enuh-uh-ough"s in the post chorus.

As her sound has continued to evolve, Pink has developed and fostered an ear for catering to the attention deficient. Beyond the succinctness of her songs, they grab your attention with immediacy. Take Fancy That's biggest hit (so far) "Illegal", which popped in and out of the #96 spot on the chart last July in the midst of its own TikTok virality. There's no intro – it wastes no time getting to the part you came to hear. It bounces to and from musical ideas like a game of ping pong, and before you can process it, she's done singing to leave you in the euphoria of its pulsing synths.

28-year-old Swedish pop singer Zara Larsson got her start by winning Talang, Sweden's adaptation of the Got Talent reality competition format, when she was only ten years old. Because of how young she was, her family's efforts to score her a record deal were unsuccessful until Larsson signed to Swedish record label TEN Music Group when she was 14. Her success in Sweden and greater Scandinavia resulted in signing a deal with Epic Records in the US just a year later, but she wouldn't release anything under the label until early 2015 – an EP of highlights from her Scandinavian debut album 1.

In 2016, two of her singles from the previous year that hit #1 in Sweden crossed over to the US charts, with "Never Forget You" (a collaboration with English singer MNEK) peaking at #13 in June 2016, and "Lush Life" peaking at #75 two months later.

From there, Larsson's presence in the US began to tumble. None of her output gained any traction over here until fall of 2024, when a TikTok meme trend introduced her voice to millions of younger teens who were not conscious human beings for her initial ascent. Users on TikTok began using Larsson's song "Symphony" with Clean Bandit (best known for 2014 hit "Rather Be") to soundtrack memes of Lisa Frank-esque images of dolphins jumping up out of the ocean with varying degrees of embarrassing confessional captions.

This prime example of Gen Z's irony-drenched, self-deprecating humor was something Larsson was able to effectively grasp onto to revive her stagnating career. She used the visuals from the memes during her tour performances of "Symphony" that year, and co-opted that ultra-colorful Lisa Frank-inspired aesthetic for her next album.

Larsson's fifth album, Midnight Sun, inspired by the sun remaining visible late into the night during Scandinavian summers, released this past September and gained considerable traction from her social media marketing tactics alone. The record's title track lead single has become a sleeper hit in its own right with its sunshiney, vibrant music video, and "Lush Life" hit a new peak on the charts this past week (currently sitting at #70) amidst her adding to the 2025 tour gimmick trend by inviting a fan to join in on the song's dance break onstage.

PinkPantheress followed up Fancy That with double remix album Fancy Some More? last October, which featured artist guest spots on the first disc and producer-led remixes on the second. Including the original, there are currently four versions of "Stateside", but the version with Larsson's feature has gained the most traction in part due to the moment she's having right now in Pink's proverbial TikTok home turf. The remix album at large was structured to uplift Walker's peers and rising artists, trading the conquest of big ticket names for contributions from undercurrent movers and shakers like Oklou and Rachel Chinouriri.

With all that said, though...

Is the song any good?

I'm counting my lucky stars that this was the song that happened to take the inaugural slot for this column – because it's nothing short of fantastic.

While I do like the beat The Dare produced for the original version more, this remix still largely follows the same structure. Vitally, the remix keeps its charm in the elements that matter most. The four count hits at the end of every stanza of Pink's verses may not hit as hard, but they're still present. Pink still barely pronounces the first A in "American" during the chorus. It's all pop bliss.

The remix eliminates a lot of the low end that makes the original so danceable and full sounding, as the wubbing bass is traded for something more garish and digital. The key is also changed from the original's Bb minor to F# major, allowing the melodies to highlight Zara's range in particular as she contributes a litany of vocal adlibs throughout the track.

As for Zara's verse itself, she positions herself in the opposite of Pink's predicament of prospective romance, giving a brief overview of her real life story. She ponders, "All the years I've put in for the American dream / Is it worth all the work if you can't be here with me?" She also reflects on her stint opening for Tate McRae: "I've been touring stateside / Kissing my Swedish boy over FaceTime / Who knew opening up would make me a headline?"

As this remix gained traction over the last several weeks, Larsson revealed that her boyfriend is banned from the US due to an old marijuana possession charge, adding an extra layer of nuance to these brief musings. Larsson's Aguilarian melismas grace the end of her verse like a musical ellipsis. Have we found ourselves a star reborn? Only time can tell.

Where is it going?

Right after I began writing this column, the music video for this remix was released in an instance of cosmic timing. More than anything, its response has yielded applause for the attention to detail in its art direction, as has been the case for both stars' recent album cycles. The praise is absolutely warranted, with the graffiti/airbrush style tops from one clip of the video sporting plaid hibiscus flowers to combine the aesthetics of both Fancy That and Midnight Sun.

The video is a masterclass in creative and visual cohesion. Pink adorns a plaid lip look in the video's opening shots as she poses as a mannequin in a store window display. The entire rest of the video (in an effective use of budget) takes place in only three places: the window displays, two iterations of the same room (one outfitted in red plaid and British ephemera for Pink, the other in seashells and hibiscus flowers for Zara), and in front of a green screen with the two women dancing side by side.

The care and attention to detail put into the video also works as a return on investment for the label. The handful of blink-and-you-miss-it easter eggs fans caught on to online encourages repeat viewing, as exemplified below.

Fans have been feeding into the Y2K nostalgia act themselves, with one tweet of a fan editing the video to make it look like an MTV syndication going viral, and another with a fan watching it on their own CRT TV.

As far as I can tell, "Stateside + Zara Larsson" is only climbing up from here. Its streaming numbers are hitting a new high every day, and the presence of the music video certainly is contributing. However, this week Billboard announced that it would no longer be factoring YouTube into its charting system effective immediately. As we continue with this column, we'll begin to see the effects of that rule change.

Both Larsson and PinkPantheress are up for Grammys in just a couple weeks. The two are up against each other in the Best Dance Pop Recording category, with Larsson nominated for "Midnight Sun" and PinkPantheress nominated for "Illegal". Fancy That is also nominated for the Best Dance/Electronic Album award. If traction continues with the Fancy That remixes, especially "Stateside", they very well could be nominated for the 2027 Grammys as they were not released until after the eligibility period ended.

Their chances for this year are honestly fairly inconclusive, as the Recording Academy's voting body continues to change and evolve, but it would be really great to see either of them take home their first Grammy a week from Sunday.