Ebba Tove Elsa Nilsson is a Swedish singer and songwriter known professionally as Tove Lo. She is known for her raw, grunge-influenced take on pop music.
She attended the music school of Rytmus Musikergymnasiet in Sweden and formed the rock band Tremblebee in 2006. After it disbanded, Lo pursued a songwriting career 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, recording and releasing her compositions independently.
Lo was signed to Universal Music, Island, and Polydor in 2013. The following year, she rose to fame with her debut album, Queen of the Clouds, which opened at number 14 on the US Billboard 200 chart in October 2014. It spawned the sleeper hit single “Habits (Stay High)”, which peaked at number three on the US Billboard Hot 100. The single was accompanied by a very bi music video.
In 2018, she penned a “love letter to the LGBT community” for Billboard magazine. She wrote:
I’m a bisexual woman who grew up in liberal Sweden with very liberal parents. I was lucky. I always felt free to explore my sexuality as little or as much as I wanted. Heterosexuality was still the norm around me, so I remember when I first thought “I look at girls a lot too, not just boys.” I remember the first time I made out with a girlfriend. I remember fantasizing about girls. I remember the first time I had sex with a girl. I never came out to my parents or my friends. I just kinda did what I wanted with whomever I wanted. I always felt different (for various reasons), but I never felt ashamed or guilty or like there was something “wrong” with me. Like I said, I was lucky…
She goes on to talk about the courage of those who are not as lucky as she was and continue to bravely live their truths. Lo has continued to have a very active career. Stemming from her fourth studio album, Sunshine Kitty (2019), her single “Glad He’s Gone” was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Music Video. She decided to part ways with Island Records and, in 2022, debuted her label, Pretty Swede Records, with the synth-pop single “No One Dies from Love”.
Earlier that year, she contributed “How Long” to the soundtrack of HBO’s Euphoria (2022), foreshadowing the darker, club-ready direction of her fifth album, Dirt Femme, which debuted near the end of 2022. The album featured collaborations like “Cute & Cruel” with First Aid Kit and “2 Die 4”, a single featuring a sample of Hot Butter’s synthpop classic “Popcorn”.
Her creative partnership with SG Lewis, sparked during Dirt Femme’s production, blossomed into the 2024 collaborative EP Heat. Initially conceived as a side project, the four-track release became a polished ode to nightlife. Promoted through pop-up DJ sets and a series of queer-centric music videos, the EP’s lead single “Heat” arrived with a provocative visual directed by David Wilson.
In an interview with The Chicago Tribune, she said:
I don’t want to do things where I always look or seem like my best, I want to do things that make me feel challenged and uncomfortable. I want to attack that little thing that makes you uncomfortable. I want to be confrontational and explore all the emotions.