Tove Lo


Ebba Tove Elsa Nilsson, known professionally as Tove Lo, is a Swedish singer-songwriter. She is known for her raw, grunge-influenced take on pop music. Referring to her autobiographical lyrics, Out called Lo "the saddest girl in Sweden", while Rolling Stone called her "Sweden's darkest pop export".
Raised in the Djursholm district of Danderyd, Lo is an alumna of the music school Rytmus Musikergymnasiet. She formed the rock band Tremblebee in 2006. After it disbanded, Lo pursued a career in songwriting and earned a publishing deal with Warner/Chappell Music in 2011. Working with producers Alexander Kronlund, Max Martin, and Xenomania, she became a successful songwriter, while also recording and releasing her own compositions independently.
In 2013, Lo was signed to Universal Music, Island and Polydor. The following year, Lo rose to prominence with her debut album, Queen of the Clouds, which opened at number 14 on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart in October 2014. It spawned the sleeper hit single "Habits ", which peaked at number three on the US Billboard Hot 100, as well as "Talking Body". Her second album, Lady Wood, was released in October 2016 and debuted at number 11 on the Billboard 200. Its lead single, "Cool Girl", became an international hit. Her follow-up records, Blue Lips and Sunshine Kitty, also performed well, the latter spawning the song "Glad He's Gone", which was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Music Video. In 2022, she released the album Dirt Femme with singles like "How Long" and "No One Dies from Love". The former was part of the soundtrack for the second season of the American teen drama series Euphoria.
In addition to her solo work, Lo has co-written songs for other artists, including Lorde's "Homemade Dynamite" and Ellie Goulding's "Love Me Like You Do", a song that garnered her Grammy Award and Golden Globe nominations. She has collaborated with many artists, including Charli XCX, Alesso, Broods, Flume, Nick Jonas, Seven Lions, Martin Garrix, Urban Cone, Kylie Minogue, Nelly Furtado, and Coldplay.

Early life

Ebba Tove Elsa Nilsson was born on 29 October 1987 in Helsingborg, Scania County. She has one older brother and is the daughter of iZettle co-founder Magnus Nilsson and psychologist Gunilla Nilsson Edholm. Her lifelong nickname and adopted stage name, Tove Lo, was given to her at age three by her godmother because of her love for lynxes. She explained; "There was this lynx at a zoo that was called Tove, and that I totally fell in love with. It was my dear godmother who decided to call me Tove Lo, after that lynx. It stuck." Having lived in Lund until the age of six, Lo's family would moved to the affluent Djursholm district of Danderyd, a suburb to Stockholm. She describes her childhood as being "very protected" and her family as "pretty posh". The singer excelled in social sciences at school and grew fond of literature, writing poetry and short stories. In an interview with the BBC, she explained, "Growing up so safe, I think I was looking for something else". During her teens she suffered from bulimia, for which her mother sought to help her through a therapist. After her first serious relationship breakup she cut herself several times due to the embarrassment.
Nilsson developed a love for music and formed a girl band with her friends. She wrote her first song with them at age 10 or 11. By age 15, Lo had written "all these lyrics that nobody ever saw" and had performed twice on stage, before enrolling at Rytmus Musikergymnasiet, a Stockholm music school. During her time at Rytmus, she developed a friendship with Caroline Hjelt, who would later form the Swedish duo Icona Pop. After two years, she graduated from the school and felt assured that her career would be in music despite her parents preferring she do something else.

Career

2006–2013: Career beginnings and songwriting

In 2006, Lo began writing songs with Christian Bjerring, a guitarist from Rytmus. The pair then formed a math rock band, Tremblebee, with three other male students from the school. They played together for three years in bars across Sweden, independently releasing some of their songs, before breaking up in 2009. During her time with the band, Lo developed a passion for performing on stage, and was introduced to Swedish production duo The Struts.
After Tremblebee broke up, Lo's musical focus turned toward pop. She decided to work on her own tracks, spending six months in her shed studio producing a demo, while doing session singing to support herself. She learned to play the drums and became knowledgeable about music programming and record production. Lo later lived with the duo Icona Pop, in a suburb near Stockholm.
Lo met an A&R man at a party in Stockholm celebrating Icona Pop's first record deal and handed him her demo. They met again by chance in a bar in London. He liked her demo and subsequently introduced her to a songwriting group which included The Struts and Hjelt. In 2011, Lo decided to pursue a career in songwriting and earned a publishing deal with Warner/Chappell Music. This new career path led her to travel to Los Angeles, and work with Swedish producer Max Martin. In 2012, she collaborated with British production team Xenomania and Swedish producer Alexander Kronlund, co-writing Girls Aloud's "Something New", Icona Pop's "We Got the World" and tracks for the duo's self-titled debut album.
Lo then decided to manage an "indie career on the side", recording her more personal compositions and releasing them independently. She released her first single, "Love Ballad", in October 2012, and her second single, "Habits", in March 2013. The latter gained her a substantial online following. Throughout 2013, Max Martin and his fellow Swedish producer Shellback mentored Lo. She was featured on Swedish disc jockey Lucas Nord's single, "Run on Love", released in June 2013 for his album Islands. She also collaborated on the single "Strangers" by Seven Lions and Myon & Shane 54 for The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones film soundtrack, and Seven Lions' extended play, Worlds Apart. She also co-wrote Victoria Justice's "Gold", and tracks for Icona Pop's This Is... Icona Pop.

2014–2015: ''Truth Serum'' and ''Queen of the Clouds''

Thanks to the strength of her online following, and the popularity of "Habits", Universal Music offered Lo a recording deal, releasing her first single, "Out of Mind" in October 2013. She would eventually be signed to Island and Polydor Records. Lo then shifted her focus to an international singing career, earning critical acclaim for her first live shows in London and during South by Southwest in the United States. Lo's debut EP, Truth Serum, was released on 3 March 2014. It became her first charting release in Sweden where it peaked at number 13. The EP was also a critical success, and led to several news media sources referring to Lo as "a pop star in waiting". It spawned three singles; "Out of Mind", the lead single, appeared only on the Finnish Airplay Chart, peaking at number 39. The next singles were "Habits " and its remixed version by production duo Hippie Sabotage, re-titled as "Stay High". It marked Lo's international breakthrough into mainstream success, peaking at number 13 in Sweden and number six in the United Kingdom. The singer was later named VH1's You Oughta Know and iHeart Radio's On the Verge artist. She made her live television debut performing "Habits " on the Late Night with Seth Meyers in June 2014.
Lo's debut album, Queen of the Clouds, was released on 24 September 2014 to generally positive reviews. It debuted at number 14 on the US Billboard 200, selling 19,000 copies in its first week, and received a Platinum certification by the Recording Industry Association of America in 2016. The album peaked at number 17 in the United Kingdom and number six in Sweden, where the Swedish Recording Industry Association certified it platinum for sales of 40,000 units. Serving as the album's lead single, a United States release of "Habits " became a sleeper hit. It was Lo's commercial breakthrough there, peaking at number three on the US Billboard Hot 100. The album's second single "Talking Body" peaked at number 12 on the US Billboard Hot 100, number 16 in Sweden, and number 17 in the United Kingdom. Her next singles were "Timebomb" and "Moments".
File:ToveLo.jpg|thumb|alt=A woman wearing a black top and blue shorts performs in a dark room with her band behind|Lo performing at the Tavastia Club in Helsinki in 2014
Lo was also featured on Swedish DJ Alesso's single "Heroes " from his debut album, Forever. It was a commercial success, peaking at number five in Sweden, number six in the United Kingdom and number thirty-one on the US Billboard Hot 100. Lo served as the opening act for the third leg of American singer Katy Perry's Prismatic World Tour in November 2014. She wrote, produced and recorded the song "Scream My Name" for The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1 film soundtrack released that month. In late 2014, the singer was signed to Max Martin's songwriting collective Wolf Cousins. The 2014 album releases of Cher Lloyd's Sorry I'm Late, Lea Michele's Louder, and Zara Larsson's 1 featured tracks co-written by Lo. She also co-wrote "What Are You Waiting For?" by The Saturdays. In December 2014, Lo announced she was taking time off to undergo surgery on her vocal cords which had developed cysts. The surgery took place successfully on 3 January 2015.
At the 2015 Grammis, Lo won in the categories for Artist of the Year and Song of the Year for "Habits ". She co-wrote the 2015 singles "Love Me Like You Do" by Ellie Goulding and "Sparks" by Hilary Duff. She went on to write two other tracks on Duff's fifth album Breathe In. Breathe Out., "Stay In Love" and "One in A Million". "Love Me Like You Do" topped the UK Singles Chart and peaked at number three on the Billboard Hot 100. It also earned Lo nominations for the Golden Globes, Grammys and Critics' Choice Awards. The Swedish group Urban Cone's single "Come Back to Me"-from their album Polaroid Memories-released in March 2015 featured Lo. She also co-wrote and was featured on "Rumors", on Adam Lambert's third studio album The Original High. On 24 September 2015, a repackaged version of Queen of the Clouds was released as the "Blueprint Edition". It featured all the tracks from the original release, as well as "Heroes " and tracks from Truth Serum. Four days later, she started her first headlining concert tour, the Queen of the Clouds Tour, featuring fellow Swedish singer Erik Hassle as the opening act. Also that year, she won STIM's Platinum Guitar prize, which is awarded to accomplished Swedish songwriters. Lo was featured on Coldplay's single "Fun", from their seventh album A Head Full of Dreams released in December 2015.