Born on September 5: Nina Persson (The Cardigans), Swedish pop elegance

Nina Persson was born in 1974 in Örebro, Sweden. Her mischievous voice marked a generation.

Nina Persson never dreamed of becoming a singer. As a visual arts student, she saw herself becoming an illustrator. She certainly loved listening to music, but never imagined she'd ever be able to make hearts flutter behind a microphone. But fate had other plans. When she joined a local rock band called The Cardigans in 1992, it was only a fleeting experience for her. Her crystalline voice, both fragile and strangely powerful, quickly became the band's main asset, alongside their instantly memorable compositions.

With the album "Life" (1995), The Cardigans were already beginning to generate interest outside their home country. But it was "First Band On The Moon" (1996) that propelled them to the top with the global hit "Lovefool." The icing on the cake was that the song was used in Baz Luhrmann's film "Romeo + Juliet." Unstoppable hits like "Erase/Rewind," "My Favorite Game," "Carnival," and "Step On Me" then followed one another like pearls on a necklace...

Throughout the albums, from "Gran Turismo" (1998) to the more experimental "Super Extra Gravity" (2005), The Cardigans' tangy pop, bathed in pastel colors, was sometimes imbued with irony and even a certain irony. The singer also pursued a discreet parallel career. With A Camp, she explored a more cinematic pop style, an approach she would later cement by composing the score for the film "What if..." (2015). Then, like a pro, she opted for more refined, jazzy, and even introspective atmospheres with "Animal Heart" (2014). In 2023, she collaborated on the very melancholic album "The Great White Sea Eagle" by James Yorkston, with The Second Hand Orchestra. Two years later, in the summer of 2025, she repeated the experience with him for "Songs for Nina & Johanna," released on the excellent Domino Records label with Johanna Söderberg (of First Aid Kit).

More than thirty years after her debut with The Cardigans and two decades after their last recordings, Nina Persson continues to experiment on her own, never refusing to reunite with her old bandmates for a handful of memorable concerts. Only two are currently scheduled for 2026, the first in Japan and the second in Berlin...

(MH with Stéphane Soupart - Photo : © Etienne Tordoir)

Photo: Nina Persson with The Cadigans on stage at W Festival in Ostend, Belgium, on August 27, 2023