Nina Persson on Objectification, The Cardigans, and Finding Every Silver Lining
In the mid-1990s, Nina Persson became the world’s most beloved accidental pop star.
As the frontwoman of The Cardigans, her coolly detached voice floated effortlessly over impossibly sweet melodies and deceptively dark lyrics — none more iconic than the bubblegum heartbreak of “Lovefool,” a song that shot the band into global orbit and cemented its eternal place in pop history.
But despite the glossy spotlight, Persson was never quite interested in fame the way it was offered to her. Over the decades, she’s shape-shifted through genres — from orchestral melancholy with A Camp to stark solo records and widely respected collaborations with cult heroes from Sparklehorse to the Manic Street Preachers.
Now, decades after she first shattered into the mainstream with candy-coated heartbreak, Nina Persson remains an artist on her own terms — still evolving, still resisting easy definitions, and still proving that the most enduring voices are the ones that refuse to compromise.
KP: I wanted to start at a place of commonality between us, which is that we didn’t necessarily intend to succeed in the industries that we initially found success in.
Of being in a band, you said, “I think the story of my life is doing things which I wouldn’t choose. That’s the cause of my sadness or frustration or depression. That’s who I was then. I can’t say I was objecting to making the record. You are also super grateful, and you acknowledge you are on a roll and you get given all these budgets and people are psyched for you to do more stuff. You are privileged. But I didn’t aspire to do music before I was in the band. It wasn’t the dream. I loved music, and I enjoyed it, but I thought I was going to do different things, and then suddenly I was 10 years into my career — that’s where I was.”
I relate to that on such a deep level. I first succeeded in the fashion industry at the age of 14, which was very much so an accident. My dream was to become a hacker or a detective! [Laughs]. It still kind of is, to be honest. [Laughs].
But when you reach this certain level of success in something, it can deceptively trap you in — it makes it very difficult to build an identity away from it. As much as it is a blessing and something that I’m sure that we are both grateful for in our own different ways, it can also be a bit of a curse.
I know for years I felt that if I left the fashion industry, then I was taking this one-in-a-million opportunity that so few people get granted in life and throwing it all away — it felt ungrateful, even though that wasn’t the intention.
So I’m just wondering what your feelings are regarding all of that now. Are you happy with where you are, or are there still many things that you wish to achieve outside of music?
NP: Oh, wow! That's really fascinating. I want to hear more about your experience with that now that you say that.
It's very interesting to hear that quote from me. I totally identify with it still; I just think that I'm at a different place right now. That has certainly been the truth, though. And perhaps it sort of still is, to a certain extent. But I think what I failed to understand — what I think comes with maturity and time — is that I simply didn’t have to. I really learned that.
One reason why that was so complicated throughout my career was that, as you said, you feel like you got this lottery ticket that people are killing to get and that you're sitting with it while being ungrateful and unhappy. And perhaps you even feel like you can't make the most of it because you're lacking the actual drive in it, in a way, but I definitely think that burden has become lighter for me because I've also realized that things simply are what they are.
I think I’ve just sort of started looking at it as fate or something, and also seeing it as a gift — I've been granted this opportunity to do all of these fun things. What I feel now, in retrospect, is that I was simply lucky. I truly wish that I had known then that I could have operated from my own standpoint more.
I think in the ‘90s — especially when you were on a big label like we were — we had all of these expectations, and all of these people on a payroll. It made you feel like you owed things to people. I really wish that I had understood then that I didn't. And I also wish that I had understood that I could have molded all of it in a different way — I could have taken it, run with it, and done exactly what I felt like doing. Which I suppose I did do, to a certain extent, but I felt like I was doing backwards bends most of the time.
And also, the things that I felt really badly about — questioning why I wasn’t more grateful, why I didn’t say yes to more things, that I could comply more — I understand now that if I had, I would have killed myself. So, in a way, my reluctance also protected me in a lot of ways. But in retrospect, I didn't see that at the time. I felt a lot of guilt.
Now I can be kinder to myself and see that it was my way of knowing myself and understanding my limitations.
KP: Totally. I think that you’re right. That's also the realization that I ultimately came to: where you initially succeeded doesn’t have to be where you stay. It doesn't actually have to feel like a prison — it can be a platform that can help you branch out into all of these other things that you actually do want to accomplish, right? Along the way, you build a reputation or you build some type of career that can then allow you to delve into different domains of greater interest. You can end up doing a lot more than you initially thought that you would.
NP: Absolutely! And I also want to say that now that The Cardigans are enjoying this ‘90s revival, we’ve had a lot of sudden interest. The interest in us has always gone up and down — we’re used to that. But right now it's just been really fun because we've happened to have had this very high interest for quite a while. We've been flooded with all of these people on the internet wallowing in imagery and material from our past. That has sometimes been really uncomfortable for me to confront, but lately I've been feeling like I’ve come to terms with who I was, with who we were, and with what we were doing. So maybe the new generation’s eyes are helping me look a lot more kindly on it — feeling like I was fucking cool and we were great.
I've also been teaching a little bit lately — sitting with students and, through their younger eyes, looking at what I've done and realizing that we really did do well. So I think I'm very grateful for being able to have that happen to me — being able to teach and to borrow other people's eyes to look at it all more kindly.
Now it feels great; I'm feeling that I can enjoy the attention and love in a different way. And also I'm not in the middle of it! I don't have to personally carry that attention. I can sit right here in my garden and feel it all. I think that's the gift of harvesting later in life a little bit, which is happening now in a way, yeah?
KP: Exactly. It doesn't have to be your whole life anymore! I think that you definitely have a healthier balance too now, which is really great.
In the past, you’ve spoken about resisting certain pop-star expectations in the ‘90s — what kind of gendered pressures did you feel early on, and how did you combat them?
NP: Well, there was this huge pressure that comes with being the lead singer of a band, which I think our male counterparts had to deal with to a certain extent, but being a female one — especially in the ‘90s, when there were just fewer of us doing what I did — it was really hard. There were the solo ladies either by their pianos or by their acoustic guitars being very, very earnest and sort of exploited, or there were the pop stars, like the Spice Girls. And there were also the rock girls… There were the British ones — Elastica and Lush — that whole Britpop scene. Then there was Courtney Love and the super rockers, but that was also not really for me either. I didn’t really identify anywhere. It was a bummer to not be able to find any close colleagues.
And then, of course, the media talked about women in a very different way than men. It was highly sexualized — you commented on people's looks, and you were either good-looking or bad-looking, you know? There was no in between. You just constantly had all these eyes on you. And especially Britain — they had terrible language in the press when it came to physicality. That sort of judgment on me was pretty, pretty weird suddenly, because I was also really young. I was like 18 when the band started!
KP: I know! You were super young!
NP: Yeah, I was! And I wrote music, but I was never asked about it. Our guitar player — who wrote most of the music — he was always asked about the music and his guitars, but I never got questions about my creative input. I felt like I got to talk about clothes and sex and partying, but nothing truly substantive. That's where I started — in a panic — to write more and more just because I was pining to have people ask me about my work. If I wrote even more, then people couldn’t ignore it anymore.
KP: That wasn’t a bad drive to have, though! At least it brought something positive.
NP: That’s true! It did.
KP: Similarly, I speak to so many frontwomen who experienced a lot of unwanted objectification at the hands of their talent, which is very much so a double-edged sword, I think. How did you navigate the tension between being viewed as a female artist and being objectified?
“Feminism wasn't on the pop culture agenda in the ‘90s, but I found it in books. I read everything that I could get my hands on.”
NP: Well, it's odd when that comes upon you at an age where you are, in your nature, quite self-obsessed and trying to figure things out with relationships and sex and the way that you look and everything. It just adds extra weight. You can't really explore that on your own; you end up having to explore it while other people are watching, which is very odd.
And also, I was super interested in clothes. I had figured out that it was definitely something that I enjoyed. That's always been my thing in a way — I am a very creative person, but I've always been sort of hindered by expectations in creativity. It comes with everything that I've done — when somebody's like, “Oh, this is great! Give us more!” It takes away the fun for me if it's going to become a whole product — as was I then, obviously, at the time.
Regarding objectification, it was complicated. I could rely on my band members — and I have to say, they've been fantastic — but they were also very young, and it was the ‘90s. The men didn't have a ton of understanding for things, so I often felt like I was crying wolf — that I was constantly complaining and always having issues.
I sort of wished that I had somebody who would have held me before I asked for it, you know? They held me when I asked for it, at any second, and they would protect me and defend my position in front of businesspeople and managers when I asked them to. I think it became a habit — they understood that they almost had to be proactive, that we had to have that operative thing as a group. That was just how you dealt with us — we’re a unit, you know? We're all equals. So that was complicated, but in retrospect, I think it was fantastic that they were wise human beings, even if they were young.
I think that I was put in a position where I had to figure these things out quite rapidly. I'm really happy that I was a reader though, for example. I've always been a reader. Feminism wasn't on the pop culture agenda in the ‘90s, but I found it in books. I read everything that I could get my hands on. There's a fantastic Danish author, Suzanne Brøgger, that I read. She wrote a couple of staples in the ‘70s. Erica Jong would be an international one, too.
And I sort of turned to the women that I did get in touch with. I fantasized so much about writing to other female musicians that I maybe hadn't befriended yet, just to sort of desperately find a way to talk about these things. I had a couple of Swedish friends — that was really helpful. I don't know if you remember, but there was a band in the ‘90s called Salt — they were Swedish. Nina [Ramsby] — who's now Nino — was a close friend of mine that was really helpful. We were the two Ninas. [Laughs]. We had quite different musical setups, but they were very helpful to me. We're still friends and talk about all of this often still when we meet.
Listening to other female artists who would sort of discuss these things in their work was important, too. Lisa Germano was one whose records I really devoured because she would touch on subjects that I had close at hand. That included being objectified, sex, dark matter — alcohol and drugs and all of those things. Her material was really helpful to me.
KP: It’s incredible that you could find kindred spirits along the way. It’s so important, right?
But going back to Sweden… Known for its pioneering approach to gender equality, it’s not uncommon for Swedish artists to be shocked by how gender is handled in other countries once they begin touring.
Do you feel that your Swedish upbringing shaped your views on gender differently than, say, American norms?
NP: Yeah, I definitely think so. Socioculturally it was very different from England and many other places. I think my upbringing, my family, and the environment were very, very different. I mean, I'm married to an American, and just seeing the differences in environments that we grew up in, for sure, Sweden was very different. But Sweden was almost more forward when I grew up than it is now, I have to say.
KP: Wow, really?
NP: Yeah, yeah, because I feel that the curve has flattened, for sure. A lot of things that we both struggled and excelled with have sort of flattened — but that's also globalization, I think. We're following the same curves in a way now than we did then.
And I think the way that pop culture media talked about gender in the ‘90s when we started was similar, because Swedish pop culture was adapting the language of the British and American press — especially the British. They were kind of what we were aspiring to be like, so that was not very different at the time.
But I think for sure that the way that I am has a lot to do with how I grew up politically and gender-wise. We were a beautiful socialist country back in the day, but now we're completely different. Now we're the craziest neoliberal example of development that you can possibly be. We're very unique in how we've privatized the welfare business and everything, so now we're not a great example at all, but I was happy to grow up in a time that I think was very, very good.
KP: It definitely was!
And of course you very famously fronted The Cardigans, but you also carved out a remarkable solo career. What freedoms did you find on your own that weren’t quite as accessible through the band?
NP: It was simply that it was the first time that I really felt like I had learned something. I felt like what I learned could carry me to do things without The Cardigans, and especially Peter, who was the core songwriter. I felt that I finally got decent ideas by myself. I met one person who I felt a really creative spark with, Niclas [Frisk,] who I formed A Camp with. We were the ones who started to write together.
And I also started listening to a different kind of music than I did when I was with The Cardigans — I discovered Americana. I started getting inspired by a different, more expressive way of singing that I dove into and developed both vocally and lyrically. It was a way of feeling — I could be more emotionally expressive, both vocally and lyrically, and be more literary, maybe. The Cardigans, in the beginning, were very stylistic. We sort of developed within a frame, and I started to go outside of that frame on my own a little bit, which was exciting.
Just a couple of weeks ago, I went to see a Neil Young show. It's actually the first time that I saw Neil Young live — he was very formative when I started A Camp. Finding Neil Young, to me, was very moving. Both musically and lyrically, his voice was really inspiring to me. So seeing him live was overwhelming. I wept; I was really, really happy. And it might've been one of the last chances to see him play. I was really happy that I got to see it.
KP: That’s so amazing.
NP: Yeah, it was! And also I started to spend more time in America, and eventually I met my husband. I started to identify more with Americana and country music and all of that, so that sort of gave fodder to the early A Camp music that I did.
KP: And speaking of — as someone with a very long and storied discography — is there any track of yours that feels overlooked by audiences that you wish had gotten more attention? If so, what is it, and why?
NP: Oh yeah! Well, with A Camp, I only made two records, really. But with The Cardigans, we regularly still play shows, so we dive into our material a little more now out of curiosity and play songs that people maybe might not have paid that much attention to before — songs that might have been B-sides. There's one song called “Deuce” that I think was a soundtrack song for some movie, but I really loved it when I found it. I mostly tend to like songs that did not become commercial hits, basically. Usually I find those more artistically up my alley.
There's another Cardigans track that we've been playing live that I love — it's called “Slow.” It’s so much fun to perform. We slowed it down even more and we made it super exaggerated, draggy, and wallowy. It was lovely.
There's also a song called “Losing a Friend” that I've really enjoyed bringing up lately, both rediscovering and redeveloping.
There's quite a bit of music there. I think for A Camp, we did a really fun covers EP that I think the hardcore fans probably listened to. We did a fun Grace Jones cover that I really enjoyed as well.
KP: Well, your Black Sabbath covers with The Cardigans are so beloved. I'm a guitarist, so I used to play a lot of Black Sabbath.
NP: Oh! Are you, yeah?
KP: Yeah! I started to play when I was 6, I believe.
NP: Oh, wow! My son is 15, and he's a total metalhead. Did you see the Back to the Beginning Festival the other day?
KP: Yeah, I did. I didn’t see the full stream, but I saw a few clips of it.
NP: We streamed the whole 10 hours here at the summer house — that was lovely. It was so moving to see Ozzy.
KP: Yeah, yeah. It was amazing.
NP: And it was crazy because he was the best singer of them all! He and Steven Tyler were the two who really kept their colors.
KP: Yeah. It was so beautiful, particularly “Mama, I’m Coming Home,” right?
NP: It was so moving.
KP: It really was.
And to speak of the absolute antithesis of songs that flew under the radar — a track that will probably be played for centuries to come… My girlfriend and I recently had fun making our own “Top 20 Songs of All Time” playlists, and my sweet little 1990s rom-com heart could not resist putting “Lovefool” on it. I don’t think that it needs any introduction, but it made me think of what we started this interview with, which is feeling stifled by something, and possibly even trapped.
Did the mega-success that was “Lovefool” ever feel like a curse in a way? Or is it a track that you will always have a soft spot for? Are you sick of it by now? I feel like you almost have to be! [Laughs]. You can tell the truth!
NP: Well, again, now I'm enjoying the perspective that have, where I don't have to be identified with any one thing in particular, but at the time, it came out and it really took on a life of its own. We definitely had years of feeling very stifled by it, particularly in relation to the record companies, who were like, “Okay, we got one ‘Lovefool,’ now you need to give us another one.” We had the constant pressure of creating another hit that had the same flavor.
We did the song, “My Favourite Game,” for example, which was a fantastic hit, but just because it wasn't the same, just because it didn't have the same sort of aesthetic as “Lovefool,” they weren’t happy. That was very stifling.
And also, with “Lovefool” being so very sweet and so very retro and so very youthful and simple and catchy, we — and I — also felt super pigeonholed. That was the very end of the spectrum for us, but we had the whole rest of the spectrum where there's so much that we do.
And the way that both we and I looked in the video for it, you know, the physical aesthetics of that — young and blonde and innocent and cute — was another thing that I had to live up to. So, in that sense, we hated it.
We also eventually would, for periods, refuse to play it live. I know why we did it, but I do regret it — we just felt so haunted by it. Years later, we finally came to terms with it. Now I can see that we’re not respecting the audience when we do that — you can never get away from playing that song; you have to lean into it. So when we started to play it again and sort of enjoyed the fact that it pleased people, it was nice to feel generous and perform it. Now I’m happy to play it, and I sing it in the way that my voice sounds now. I can sing it more from the standpoint of being a 50-year-old Nina — I can put more humor into it because I don't have to feel that I identify with it that heavily.
So I've really gone through very long, different stages. It’s been a long journey with that song.
KP: Well, so many people consider it to be one of the most perfect pop songs ever written, so I imagine that it could definitely become quite the echo chamber. Obviously, it’s a fantastic song — that’s why we love it! [Laughs]. But I love your other music, too, of course!
And on the opposite end of the spectrum, Gran Turismo has often been called ahead of its time, particularly for its stark, electronic minimalism.
How do you view that album now, in terms of its legacy and feel? What headspace were you in for its writing, and do you have a favorite track off of it?
NP: Well, we were in a headspace when we made it that was very much colored by the things that we've talked about — how I felt like I didn’t identify with the role I'd been given, how we felt so pigeonholed aesthetically by the world and the business… And we were also completely exhausted from working very hard. We felt that there was something sort of nihilistic about our approach to that record, which I think now was a very extreme standpoint. But I think it was quite amazing that we could put all of ourselves into that. I mean, later on when we would make records, everybody had kids, and we had matured more — it's hard work to put yourself into such a pure aesthetic realm. We really lived that record at the time, so I'm also really happy with how it turned out. I mean, I never want to feel that way in my life ever again, but I’m grateful that it came to be.
I was teaching creativity at a music conservatory in Copenhagen, talking to these kids about how to find creativity and how you find inspiration. I'd be thinking several times about the irony regarding this terrible fact that being in a certain emotional state can be fantastic for creativity, even if it's very destructive to yourself. So for Gran Turismo, I'm happy now that we could have an outlet for the place that we were at during that time — it was very much colored by that.
And also, before that, we had made a very dramatic shift in our method. We basically bought a computer for the first time and had Pro Tools delivered to our studio — that was just when it had first come out, basically. We had no fucking idea of how to use it! [Laughs].
KP: Wow! Yeah, I can't even imagine making that shift.
NP: It was a really fun project in a way, because you can so tell that it was somebody using computers who had no idea how to use them. It sounds pretty shitty in that regard, because now people have such a good grasp on that; it's developed so much. I mean, I guess it's kind of fun that we treated our equipment in such a disrespectful way. [Laughs]. It's also quite true to form. We were always very respectful to the acoustic instruments that we used — we would chop up drums and tape them back together. We had to have a guy come from Texas, where Pro Tools was made, come and clean up our files since we had made such a mess of them. It basically became impossible to make a record out of them. He was like, “What have you done? How did you even do this?” [Laughs]. So now I think it's quite fantastic that we could take such a big leap. I’m really happy.
It was also our way of pushing back at the record company's expectations — letting them know that they weren’t going to get anything like what we had given them before. We were going to give them something different.
But to play live, we've sort of actually, at the moment, moved away from the Gran Turismo album more and more just because we feel like they're pretty stuck in their forms. The songs are written very much with production in mind — they're much less malleable than other songs of ours, if you see what I'm saying. As a musician, I'm sure you see what I'm saying.
KP: I do!
NP: So we've been trying to take them out of their costumes, but when you do that, sometimes they lose some things. We're a little tired of having all of these backing tracks — we like to play our instruments more these days. So we've had to move away from that a little bit now because they’re so very much an aesthetic choice.
KP: Yeah, I definitely, definitely understand that. I think that’s the right move for the moment.
Especially in the ‘90s, the industry didn’t always know what to do with women who didn’t play the game, and I certainly wouldn’t put you in the category of women who blindly followed any rules. How did you carve out space on your own terms, and what advice would you lend women who seek to do the same, but may feel unable to?
NP: Well, I think just taking breaks and being away from it for periods of time was really good. It forces you to get a perspective on things. I didn’t think of it consciously at the time, though. Not only did we live in Sweden — we lived in Malmö and not in Stockholm. To actually have private time to be away from the business was really, really good. I think I would actually advise that if somebody were to ask me for advice. I mean, I did spend time in New York also, but I never hung out with businesspeople in New York. And New York is also big enough where you can find your own corner. I’ve always had more friends who were not in the industry than I did people who were, except for my band.
KP: Likewise!
NP: Well, my husband is from the industry, but other than that, my old close friends were always people who did all kinds of other things. I think that was a great thing, too. I mean, I once swore that I would never date a musician again, but then I ended up marrying a musician!
KP: Even worse! [Laughs].
NP: Yeah! And I'm still married to him, but I also think it was good that I never thought that I had to have friends or relationships with people who were in the business — people who were famous or anything. For those reasons, I think that saved me. That always made me feel comfortable, safe, and genuine.
KP: Yeah, I certainly understand that.
You survived cancer in 2009, which I’m sure had a profound impact on your perspective and work. What did it teach you about life, strength, or time, if it did at all?
NP: Well, first of all, it was the first time that I really understood that even I can falter in health. Other than getting cancer, I've always been very healthy. I mean, maybe I didn’t necessarily live the healthiest, but I've just been lucky in the sense that I barely get colds and I have good teeth, you know, those kinds of things. I'm just fortunate to be born with a cooperative constitution. So that was the first time that I ever realized that death is real — that I could get sick and that things could happen out of the blue to me.
I'd also been fairly protected, you know? So that was very strange to suddenly be reminded of all of these things. So I went through the actual treatments, and it was a gynecological cancer, so I had to struggle with having a kid after that, too. I had the strangest fertility and pregnancy after that, but then I did have a kid.
But it wasn't until after all of that that the emotional side caught up with me. I had heard people warn me about that with cancer — that when you're in it, you're just hell-bent on surviving, but afterwards, the sadness comes. And it did. And that was very difficult because it came when I also had a toddler.
Not to mention, that was especially weird, because even if you hadn't been through cancer, having a small baby makes you very conscious of life and death, love, and the risk of severe loss. Those were really emotional years for sure.
Bu I also learned that my body was very capable of difficult things, so I started to trust my body a lot more. I think that it really helped with my body issues — these issues from having so many eyes on me. It helped me realize that my body was about a lot more than looks. So I started to really feel a lot more compassion for myself and my body after that, which was positive. I mean, I wouldn't wish cancer upon anybody, but it does help you to appreciate the things that are working with your body more than the things that you think are wrong, in a sense.
KP: I relate to that very deeply. And, well, it's always good to find a silver lining.
NP: Yeah, there's always a consolation prize in things.
KP: If your entire discography was to be distilled into one message for future generations listening to it, what would you want it to be?
NP: Oh god, that is really hard. When I think of it, and when I think of it in a kind way, I've always thought of my music and my creativity as being like a Trojan horse — there’s a lot of stuff inside.
I was just listening to Morrissey with my family in the car — we had a long drive where we just listened to The Smiths and his lyrics. I was so inspired by this. He's great at packaging things that are underneath the surface — I remember being so intrigued by that. And also, back to Neil Young, it's never apparent with him what he was packaging, but I was also very inspired by his lyric writing — how there was so much to put into it as a listener. I'm hoping that I do that.
But yeah, the Trojan horse aspect of it is what I hope for — and, on good days, sometimes what I think it is that I've done.
KP: I think that it definitely is.
If you could tell your younger self one thing, what would it be?
NP: It's the fun people who get sad.
KP: What advice would you lend to women about life, work, or love?
NP: I think it’s such a cliché, but the best is to just go where it's warm.
KP: What do you feel makes a provocative woman?
NP: Darkness and humor.
Photography: Petra Bindel
