FEATURE:
The Digital Mixtape
Nina Persson at Fifty: An Ultimate Playlist
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A wonderful artist and songwriter…
IN THIS PHOTO: The Cardigans
I discovered in the 1990s as a child is Nina Persson. The lead of The Cardigans, she turns fifty on 6th September. I wanted to celebrate this amazing artist. Someone who has also worked solo and as a collaborator. I am going to end with a career-spanning playlist featuring some of her solo material, work with other musicians, plus a good selection of tracks with The Cardigans. A definite icon of the 1990s and a legend in her own right, she deserves to be recognised. Before I ger to that playlist, AllMusic have a biography of Nina Persson. Someone who has had a truly amazing career:
“Known primarily as the frontwoman for the '90s-formed Swedish indie pop heroes the Cardigans, Nina Persson also went on to front the solo project A Camp for a pair of albums in the 2000s. While living in New York she issued a proper solo album, the '80s-inspired Animal Heart, in 2014 before moving back to Sweden. Persson was relatively quiet in the late 2010s, resurfacing every now and then for a guest spot or collaborative single, but in 2023 she shared top billing with U.K. folk artist James Yorkston on The Great White Sea Eagle, which also featured Swedish chamber group the Second Hand Orchestra.
Growing up in Jönköping, Sweden, Persson was a relative latecomer to pop music, only beginning to show interest in it when she was well into her teens. After meeting Peter Svensson and Magnus Sveningsson while at art college, she was asked to front the Cardigans even before she'd performed live on-stage. In the mid-'90s the band issued four albums -- from 1994's twee, soft-released Emmerdale to 1998's three million-selling Gran Turismo -- while steadily finding further worldwide commercial success with each concurrent release; the band managed to achieve this while gradually pursuing darker themes and sounds along the way.
Released in 1996, First Band on the Moon -- which featured the international hit "Lovefool" -- was the first Cardigans record to include lyrics penned by Persson, and by the time a band hiatus arrived due to various bandmembers' family commitments, she was more than equipped to be the main creative force behind the solo side project that she named A Camp. The 2001-released, self-titled album was produced in the main by Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse, but also featured some production and instrumentation from ex-Shudder to Think guitarist Nathan Larson, who Persson married that same year following their relocation to New York in 2000
In the mid-2000s, the Cardigans resumed work and released a pair of albums, each of which topped the Swedish charts. 2003's Per Sunding-produced, country-influenced Long Gone Before Daylight continued the band's tradition of progressively issuing downbeat material, while 2005's Super Extra Gravity saw the return of Tore Johansson, who had produced each of the band's '90s albums.
The second politically themed A Camp album, Colonia, took influence from classic pop of the '60s and '70s and appeared in 2009, the same year that her contribution to the Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse album Dark Night of the Soul was made available. In 2010, Persson gave birth to her son Nils, and subsequently -- although she contributed vocals to Larson's soundtrack projects of the period, as well as to James Iha's album Look to the Sky -- became less focused on making music in the years that followed. However, by 2014 she had readied a proper solo album, the first to appear under her own name. Released that February, sessions for the '80s pop-inspired Animal Heart took place in collaboration with both Larson and Fruit Bats mainstay Eric D. Johnson. After this Persson and her family relocated from New York back to Sweden and settled in Malmö. Apart from a pair of Swedish-language singles featuring, among others, Bob Hund frontman Thomas Öberg, she kept a low profile until 2022 when she teamed up with Scottish folk singer/songwriter James Yorkston. Released in 2023 The Great White Sea Eagle marked Yorkston's second project with Swedish chamber pop group the Second Hand Orchestra. As longtime admirers of Persson, Yorkston and producer Karl-Jonas Winqvist invited her to be the featured vocalist on many of the album's songs”.
A singular voice and songwriter, I am glad I have an excuse to feature Nina Persson! Turning fifty on 6th September, I do hope that we get more music from her soon. Whether that is another solo album or anything with another musician. I am not sure whether we will get any new music from The Cardigans. In any case, below is a playlist that shows what an amazing artist Persson is. Here is a collection of songs from…
A music icon.