Music / Tove Lo

Don't worry. She's a cool girl.

All the girls stare at me, drop lip,

Drippin' in harmony, like fifth.

— "bitches"

Tove Lo (born Ebba Tove Elsa Nilsson on October 29, 1987) is a Swedish singer-songwriter. She is known for her raw and candid take on pop music; further aspects of her musical style can be best described as what would happen if Paula Cole was an electropop artist.

Tove gained fame in August 2014 when her song "Habits (Stay High)", previously featured on her debut EP Truth Serum, became a radio hit. Her debut album, Queen of the Clouds, was released on September 30 of that year.

Tove's next two albums formed two halves of a concept: 2016's Lady Wood, which came with two short films to promote it (Fairy Dust and Fire Fade), and 2017's Blue Lips, which also had a short film. She then largely focused then on collaborations up until 2019, when she released her fourth album Sunshine Kitty, which was said to mark a "new chapter" for her through its relatively happier sound and it being inspired by personal elements in her life including regained confidence, wisdom, and a new relationship. Her fifth album, 2022's Dirt Femme, was her first to be independently released by her own record label, Pretty Swede Records.

Discography:

• Truth Serum (2014)
• Queen of the Clouds (2014)
• Lady Wood (2016)
• Blue Lips (2017)
• Sunshine Kitty (2019)
• Dirt Femme (2022)

---

Tove Lo provides examples of:

• Album Title Drop: The title of Queen of the Clouds is dropped in "Not on Drugs".
• all lowercase letters: Most of Blue Lips bar the chapter intros "LIGHT BEAMS" and "PITCH BLACK", in Caps Lock.
  • Blue Lips is stylized as BLUE LIPS [lady wood phase ii].
• All Women Are Lustful: At the start of the "bitches" video, the guy isn't so sure about his girlfriend taking him to sex class.
• Cluster F-Bomb: Lady Wood and Blue Lips as a whole, but special mention goes to "struggle":
  Fuck, fuck, fuck some sense into me.
• Concept Album: Queen of the Clouds is a love story divided into three parts: "The Sex", which is Exactly What It Says on the Tin, "The Love", dealing with mostly relationships, and "The Pain", dealing with break-ups and love issues.
  • Lady Wood and its second phase, Blue Lips, revolve around the highs and lows of these selfsame themes.
• Depraved Bisexual: in "bitches" where she sings about seducing numerous guys and girls casually. The song's music video depict Tove Lo in dominatrix gear forcing a couple to participate in S&M activities against their will with her.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Knocks out her puppet date Mango in "disco tits" when their argument escalated because he wanted BBQ sauce with his fries.
• Dramatic Gun Cock: Featured in "My Gun".
• Even the Girls Want Her: "bitches". See quoted lyric on the top of the page.
• The Hedonist: Some of her songs are about this and Tove Lo herself.
• Intercourse with You: It's far easier at this point to just list the songs that avert this trope.
• Lyrical Cold Open: "9th of October" and "don't ask don't tell".
• Lyrical Dissonance: Plenty of her songs are rather upbeat for tunes about drug abuse, abusive relationships, falling in love but knowing it will end soon, sex and other things. "Timebomb" fits the third quota, yet is just...so...uplifting!
• Motor Mouth: "Timebomb" shows her quickly singing the verses of the song without pausing to take a breath.
• Nipple and Dimed: Tove's tits in "bitches" are covered with golden sticker stars.
• Obsession Song: "Love Ballad" contains lyrics explicitly claiming that she will cut off some of her own body parts, set herself on fire, fight anyone she needs to, and commit suicide among other things...all for the one she loves. Yes, that's how hard she's in love.
• One Phone Call: How the entirety of "Glad He's Gone" plays in its official music video. This trope comes into play after Tove is incarcerated for killing a robber.
• The Oner: "Talking Body" and "True Disaster".
• Power Pop: Ventures in this territory on "Timebomb".
• Precision F-Strike: She just about uses EVERY definition of the word "fuck" in much of her discography.
• Really Gets Around: "bitches".
• Rearrange the Song: The Hippie Sabotage remix of "Habits (Stay High)" turns an indie-electropop song into pure chillwave.
  • Elements from Lady Wood were arranged into a score for Fairy Dust and Fire Fade.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Lady Wood (blue) comes in with hypnotic tracks that stay more or less consistent in terms of style. Blue Lips (red, like the cover) is spikier and more style-diverse, with dramatic vocals and gut-punching rhythm sections.
• Sex for Solace: Sings about this in some of her songs, peticularly "Habits (Stay High)".
• Sexy Scandinavian: Of course. (See Shameless Fanservice Girl below)
• Shameless Fanservice Girl: Loves to flash fans during live performances.
• Shock Value Relationship: "Like 'Em Young", which falls under the Double Standard tropes, flipping both male and female…arguing is it why is it okay if men do it and possibly falls under Unequal Pairing…
• Shout-Out: "Cool Girl" references Jillian Flynn's Gone Girl.
  • Elliphant and ALMA's verse in the extended version of "bitches" has references to Greco-Roman figures like Venus and "the three-headed goddess from the full moon land".
    • "Drippin' in harmony, like fifth."
• Stage Name: When she was age 3, Tove couldn't stop staring at a lynx ("lo" in Swedish, pronounced like Lou) while visiting an animal park with her parents, and so they started calling her Tove Lo ever since.
• Super Cell Reception: Played with in "Glad He's Gone" where Tove manages to march her way everywhere, up to and including over trains, aboard a ship in turbulent waters, and in the midst of a storm while calling her girlfriend. And then comes a Sudden Lack of Signal after we see Tove breaking out of prison.
• The Stoner / Mr. Vice Guy: Well, girl, but Tove definitely qualifies.
• Think of the Censors!: It probably won't surprise anyone to know that Tove hates making bowdlerized versions of her songs, but she does it anyway because otherwise American radio wouldn't play them.
• Title Drop: "disco tits" itself averts this but its prior track "LIGHT BEAMS" chants it in all its magnificence:
  Motherfucking queen of the disco tits.
• Tricked into Signing: In the video for "bitches", Tove presents the couple with consent forms but then signs both those forms while the pens are in their hands.
• Tunnel King: In "Glad He's Gone" Tove escapes prison through the sewers.
• Unusual Euphemism: "My Gun".
• Walking the Earth: "Glad He's Gone" shows literally how far Tove would go just to stay in touch with her girlfriend.
• A Wild Rapper Appears!: Wiz Khalifa in "Influence".
• You Say Tomato: Tove and Mango talk about how her name is pronounced in the "disco tits" video intro. In real life, though, she's quite chill with people pronouncing it the Anglicized way.

The Lady Wood and Blue Lips films provide examples of:

Tropes applying to the films in general include:

• But Not Too Bi: Tove ends up chilling with a man in "Vibes", and hangs out with three guys in "WTF Love Is".
  • Ebba spends the latter half of Blue Lips hanging out with Guy.
• Hair-Contrast Duo: Tove seems to like short-haired brunettes.
  • Fairy Dust: Tove (dirty blonde) and Lorna (brunette), with shades of Light Feminine Dark Feminine.
  • Blue Lips: Ebba (bleach blonde) and Kit (brunette).
• Mind Screw: The fact that Tove likes to deconstruct sex in general is understandable but with everything that's happening in the first two films, well...
  • Averted in Blue Lips where there's at least a plot concerning Kit's hookup blues. But then there's the ending including The Stinger.
• Three Minutes of Writhing: Tove took this trope up to eleven in the Lady Wood era.

Fairy Dust

• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: In "Cool Girl", we're given a slight glimpse of Lorna in her coffin, untouched despite having set fire to herself.
• Driven to Suicide: Lorna.
• Expository Hairstyle Change: Tove shaves her head in "Cool Girl". However, if you watch Fairy Dust in its entirety, she screws with this trope. Come "Vibes" Tove still has her hair.
• Laughing Mad: Tove on her way to her motel room at the prologue, eventually coming to a Heroic BSoD
  • Foreshadowing: Elements from "True Disaster" play on and off in this particular scene. Also the fact that it's one long shot.
• Nobody Poops: The first shot we see of Lorna is in the toilet, contemplating.
• Straw Feminist: The first 3 minutes of Fairy Dust after the title card is Lina Esco embodying this trope as Lorna. Tove becomes this as well in Fire Fade.
• Straw Nihilist: Lorna, right before she crashes Tove's Mercedes.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Lorna and Tove respectively.
• Wham Shot: The very end of the film, where we see Lorna scornfully watching Tove masturbating.
  You like that shit?

Fire Fade

• Bottle Episode: Fire Fade happens entirely in the motel, with much of it in Tove's own room.
• Gravity Screw: Type 2. Tove writhes and crawls up all over the walls and ceiling just to catch that butterfly. She's that persistent.
• Minimalist Cast: Mostly Tove until the last song, when she joins three guys in their motel room party.
• Sanity Slippage: The whole thing, but particularly "Imaginary Friend".

Blue Lips

• Breakup Is Temporary: Fresh off her working hours, Kit tells Ebba about her boyfriend's ex getting back with him.
• Censor Suds: Averted. There's not enough bathwater to censor Ebba's breasts, and Kit's are hidden not by suds but by her own knees.
• Chicks Before Dicks: Kit sees Guy socialize with Ebba and feels left out, ultimately prompting her to leave the party early. Ebba tries to re-establish this trope with Kit at the end.
• Diegetic Switch: Instead of playing the songs in their entirety and following the album listing like with Fairy Dust and Fire Fade, Blue Lips randomizes its parent album into music which entails liberal use this trope.
• Gratuitous Disco Sequence: Kit skates alone on the dance floor at the very start of Blue Lips.
• Gratuitous Swedish: Guy impresses Ebba at the bar with whatever command of Swedish he's got. Justified as Guy's parents know the language, though he's a bit rusty himself.
• Mushroom Samba: Inevitable given that this is a Tove Lo movie. Kit even hallucinates cartoons.
• One Head Taller: Guy is this to Ebba.
• Popping Buttons: Ebba has difficulty zipping up her jeans, even with Kit's help, and ends up taking it off and putting on more comfortable shorts instead.
• Real Name as an Alias: Tove's character is named Ebba.
• Rollerblade Good: Kit. Justified as she works at the roller skate rink.
• Status Quo Is God: After spending the night with Guy, Ebba goes straight back to bed with Kit.
• Unnaturally Blue Lighting: Ebba's dizzying "Cycles" sequence, just before the credits roll in. The Stinger has more colorful lighting.