Oscar Scheller, Producer of PinkPantheress’s ‘Stateside’ Remix, on Why the Track’s Tuning Flaws Matter

Early 2026, a rework of PinkPantheress’s “Stateside” featuring Zara Larsson became the British artist’s biggest hit, topping both the Billboard Global 200 and Spotify’s global chart, and pulling close to 50 million weekly streams at its peak. The producer behind it, London-born Oscar Scheller, calls the track “a pretty oddball song to be a hit”—and the surprise around its success is only sharpened by a strand of online criticism aimed at its tuning.

Scheller, who has worked closely with PinkPantheress since 2021, was drafted to remix several tracks from her 2025 project Fancy That for the Fancy Some More? remix album. His version of “Stateside” was the one she chose to release, with Larsson’s feature delivered to him as a complete surprise. “I knew as soon as I heard PinkPantheress that we had similar musical DNA,” he says. “She’s insanely melodic.”

The track’s ascent brought with it a recurring complaint: that elements of the production sit slightly out of tune. Scheller not only acknowledges the detail but frames it as intentional resistance. “There’s all this discourse online about how everything is out of tune on Stateside,” he says. “But I’ve been pleased with that—we need imperfection. It’s like a retaliation to AI and this weird humanless vacuum of sound that people keep pushing down our throats. We need the human touch.”

It’s a statement of craft, not anomaly. For Scheller, the micro-dissonances are not a slip but a signal—one that pushes back against the frictionless surfaces machine tools can produce. The conversation around the track, then, becomes less about a quirk and more about what a hit can still refuse to smooth over.