Bar Liam Gallagher, when you meet wild music stars, it’s usually the case that they’re surprisingly soft-spoken and considerate in person, at least when on album promotion duties.
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they → meet → duties
So it is with Tove Lo, who we meet at the Standard hotel (no relation) and find her a model of poise and dry humour; a cool customer.
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her → meet → poise
Lo’s been doing it for 15 years.
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Lo → do → years
And with the world in love with Charli, Slayyyter and the new wave of dancefloor-filling maniacs, the timing for Lo to release her first album in four years, Estrus, is perfect… yet Lo, grappling with shifts in her life, says she felt intensely vulnerable making it, “like a crab without its shell”.
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she → fill → shell
Her life had become stable.
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life → become → ?
“I always write from such a personal place and the difference with this is the first album I’ve written when I’ve been in a relationship for this long.
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I → write → long
I’m not writing about the beginning of things or the end of a thing.
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I → write → thing
Yes, this party girl elder is settled down with her husband, creative director Charlie Twaddle, something which has brought a fear of losing her edge.
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which → settle → edge
“The chaos is still very present,” she qualifies, “but it’s not affecting relationships as much as it used to.
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it → qualify → relationships
I’m more conscious of stopping before I cross the line, although I would say my line is probably a bit further away than most people’s.
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line → ’m → people
But it’s been good for my creativity because it taps into another nuance of being an impulsive, messy girl.
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it → tap → nuance
”
“I’m being told that I’m not allowed to make any more mistakes”
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I → tell → mistakes
Estrus works with the tension of moving into a new phase of life without becoming a sanitised version of yourself.
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Estrus → work → yourself
She says, “I’m being told that I’m not allowed to make any more mistakes or my time for self-exploration is up.
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time → say → exploration
I’m just so not there.”
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I → ’m → ?
This record is hardly a rocking-chair country album.
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record → rock → ?
It’s more that her kind of club music has become physical, emotional and existential.
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kind → ’ → music
“I’m not saying it’s wrong to be a responsible person, it’s just I’m not ready for that.
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I → say → that
Naturally, being in my late thirties, I see where other people are going, but being creative and someone who hates routine… I’m wondering, am I on the right trajectory?
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I → see → trajectory
These philosophical things are coming in, but also, I just want to live and not think about the future.
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I → come → future
Luckily, my partner’s very similar.
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partner → ’ → ?
Family, all those adult long life choices, are coming into play and it’s freaking me out.
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it → come → me
That’s where we’re at: freaking out.
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we → ’ → where
She wonders if she’s having an early mid-life crisis.
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she → wonder → crisis
Lo grew up in a nice suburb in Stockholm, and was always in bands at school, always writing songs.
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Lo → grow → songs
Coming out of school she began working on her own career as a pop star; by her mid-twenties she was a songwriter in Los Angeles — writing for Girls Aloud among many others — while building her own solo act, which was singularly provocative and uncompromising.
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which → come → act
Fame — notoriety — was hard to adjust to: “I was just freaked out because I felt like I went from playing to 100 people in clubs in Stockholm to late-night live TV in America — it felt like such a culture shock.”
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it → adjust → shock
“I remember getting so many questions about ‘is this really the example for you want to set for young girls?’
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you → remember → girls
In pop it wasn’t common yet to sing openly about being a sexual person and being bi and getting f***ed up.
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it → sing → pop
Now it’s more like, ‘oh, you’re a feminist and the gays love you’, which is great.
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which → ’ → you
But I think the world’s changed, I haven’t changed.”
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I → think → ?
In becoming one of Sweden’s leading music lights, one with hit singles, songs on The Hunger Games soundtrack and collabs with Lorde, Ellie Goulding and Muse, it necessitated a certain lifestyle that didn’t include a life.
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that → become → life
“My music has always come first and I’ve always been aware that this unbelievable dream coming true doesn’t happen to many people.
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dream → come → people
When that happens to you, you hold on to it, it’s very hard to sacrifice anything for it.
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it → happen → it
But now I have found people give me the same joy.
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people → find → joy
I have to show up for the people I love.”
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I → have → people
It’s a familiar story for artists, the question of whether their art will suffer if they choose happiness.
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they → ’ → happiness
She says that while “self-destruction is part of the game, I don’t think you need to be unhappy or have chaos to make good music,” but “it’s just that I thrive there creatively… like going to the studio every day, 9 to 5 is my nightmare.”
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going → say → studio
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“I hadn’t found my creative outlet yet and that could put me in bad emotional states”
She acknowledges her need of chaos can be traced back to her upbringing.
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need → read → upbringing
The daughter of Zettle co-founder Magnus Nilsson and psychologist Gunilla Edholm, she says she instinctively rebelled against the conformity of the affluent area they lived in.
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they → say → area
…and 44 more, not listed.
The Aporia
