Ebba Tove Elsa Nilsson (born October 29, 1987, in Stockholm) is a Swedish singer and songwriter better known by her stage name Tove Lo.
She is best known for her hit “Habits (Stay High),” which peaked at number three on the Billboard Hot 100. In March 2014, she released her Truth Serum EP. She has written songs for a variety of artists, including Lorde, Lea Michele, and Icona Pop.
Tove Lo is known for bringing grunge influences to pop music and has been dubbed “The Darkest Swedish Pop Artist” by Rolling Stone Magazine. Her characteristic honesty, complexity, and autobiographical lyrical content have led her to be dubbed “Sweden’s Saddest Girl.”
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The early years
Ebba Tove was born in Stockholm, Sweden on October 29, 1987. Her mother is a therapist, and her father is a businessman with an older brother. Her godmother gave her the nickname and stage name Tove Lo when she was three years old.
Ebba grew up in the Stockholm suburb of Djursholm. She claims that she was always “very protected” as a child. Tove excelled in school and developed an interest in literature, writing poetry, and short stories.
Tove Lo discovered a love for music and formed a girl band with her friends. She wrote her first song with the band when she was 11 years old.
Before enrolling in Rytmus Musikgymnasiet, a music school in Stockholm, she had written a great repertoire of lyrical content that no one had ever seen, and she performed twice on stage.
Tove Lo graduated from high school after two years. Even though her parents preferred that she pursue a university degree, she realized after finishing her studies that her career would be related to music.
In 2011, she worked on songwriting with Max Martin and his team.
Tove Lo Career
From 2012 to 2015, She worked as a waitress and as the Queen of the Clouds.
Tove Lo’s debut single, “Love Ballad,” was released in the autumn of 2012. She has worked with a variety of artists, including Lucas Nord and Seven Lions. On October 16, 2013, her second single, “Out of Mind,” was released. Her third single, “Habits,” was released on December 6, 2013.
It peaked at number ten in Denmark and made it into the top twenty on the Billboard Hot 100. Truth Serum, his debut EP, was released on March 3, 2014. The album peaked at number 25 on Sweden’s Albums Chart.
She also released a new single, “Stay High,” at the same time as her debut album. The song peaked at number six on the UK Singles Chart.
On August 19, 2014, he revealed in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine that his debut album, Queen of the clouds, would be released in the United States in September 2014, with the UK edition following a year later.
The album includes the singles “Habits” and “Not on drugs,” as well as a new version of “Run on Love” co-written with Swedish DJ Lucas Nord. The album contains twelve songs, which are divided into three sections of four songs each, titled “The sex” (sex), “The love” (love), and “The pain” (pain), to reflect the songs’ approach.
Tove Lo opened for Katy Perry on her 2014 Australian tour as part of her Prismatic World Tour. She won Artist of the Year and Song of the Year at the 2015 Grammys for “Habits (Stay High).”
She co-wrote Ellie Goulding’s 2015 single “Love Me Like You Do” and Hilary Duff’s 2015 single “Sparks.” She went on to write two more songs for Duff’s fifth studio album, “Stay In Love” and “One in a Million.” She began her first world tour, Queen of the Clouds Tour, in November 2015.
Lady Wood and Blue Lips (2016–2018)
Lo released “Scars,” the lead single from the soundtrack of the film The Divergent Series: Allegiant, on February 19, 2016. The following month, she appeared on the remix version of Years & Years’ single “Desire.”
She also appeared as a guest artist on Nick Jonas’s “Close,” the lead single from his third studio album Last Year Was Complicated, in the same month. The song peaked at number 14 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States.
Tove Lo also appeared on Flume’s single “Say It,” which was released on April 20, 2016. The artist co-wrote Ellie Goulding’s “Still Falling For You,” the lead single from the soundtrack of the film Bridget Jones’s Baby (2016).
Lady Wood, the singer’s second studio album, was released on October 28, 2016. It topped the Swedish album chart and peaked at number 11 on the US Billboard 200. Her debut single, “Cool Girl,” charted in Australia and was certified Platinum.
It was also ranked in the top 30 for gold certification in New Zealand and Sweden. Tove Lo announced a solo tour of Europe and North America called the Lady Wood Tour five days before the album’s release. To promote the album, she released two short films directed by Tim Erem that featured album tracks.
The first, Fairy Dust, was uploaded to YouTube on October 31, 2016, but was quickly removed due to the site’s sexual content policies. The singer responded to the situation on Twitter, claiming that she was not even naked in the video. The following video, Fire Fade, was released on August 25, 2017.
Tove Lo promoted her album while opening for Maroon 5’s The Maroon V tour in the United States in late 2016.
She co-wrote and performed “Lies in the Dark,” which appeared on the soundtrack of the film Fifty Shades Darker, which was released on February 10, 2017.
Six days later, it was announced that he would be opening for Coldplay on their A Head Full of Dreams tour, which will take place in Europe, the United States, and Canada from June to October 2017. Tove Lo co-wrote “Homemade Dynamite,” a song on Lorde’s second studio album, Melodrama.
It was released as the album’s third single on September 16, 2017. Lo released her third studio album, Blue Lips, on November 17, 2017, referring to it as the sequel to Lady Wood.
The record was less successful than Lo’s previous releases, peaking at 138 on the US Billboard 200. “Disco Tits,” the first single, was released in September 2017.
As the second single from Blue Lips, Tove Lo released a remix of “Bitches” featuring XCX, Alma, Icona Pop, and Elliphant on June 7, 2018.
Sunshine Kitty from 2019 to the present
Tove Lo announced the title of her fourth studio album, Sunshine Kitty, in a press release on May 31, 2019. That same day, the album’s lead single, “Glad He Gone,” was released, along with a lyric video.
Tove Lo announced on August 1 that the album would be released on September 20, 2019. The following day, the second single, “Bad as the Boys,” featuring Finnish musician Alma, was released. On August 28, 2019, Tove Lo released her third single, “Jacques,” a collaboration with British DJ Jax Jones.
On September 6, 2019, she released “Really Don’t Like U,” a collaboration with Australian singer-songwriter Kylie Minogue. Lo had appeared on Alma’s song “Worst Behavior” five days before.
She released her single “Bikini Porn” on January 15, 2020. In March 2020, Lo collaborated with Spotify to release an English version of Veronica Maggio’s song “Jag kommer” for his It’s Hits playlist. Sunshine Kitty: Paw Prints Edition, with 8 new songs, was rereleased in May 2020.
In July 2020, she held a contest in which six fans could join her on her island Animal Crossing: New Horizons for a special DJ set where they could design an outfit for her, her villager, and the best guests for the performance. Tove Lo’s edgy voice and catchy lyrics were featured on Martin Garrix’s “Pressure” on February 5, 2021.