Loreen came onto the public’s radar in 2004 when she competed in Swedish Idol.
Returning to the public eye in 2011, Loreen released her song “Your Heart is Refusing Me”, which peaked on the Swedish Singles Chart at number 9. The pivotal moment of Loreen’s career came from the critically acclaimed platinum record; “Euphoria.”
The Eurodance sensation won 372 points from 40 out of 42 voting countries. “Euphoria” charted at number three in the UK singles chart. The song also remained in the top 20 of the UK charts for weeks following the Eurovision.
From 2014 to 2022, Loreen toured multiple times, and in 2017, she released her first EP, “Nude.” Loreen competed in Melodifestivalen for a fourth time with her song “Tattoo.” She progressed to the final, and the song was released on all digital platforms.
It debuted at number one in Sweden and bagged Loreen her second Swedish number one. “Tattoo” won Sweden its seventh Eurovision with a whopping 583 points.
Loreen has recently realised that she doesn’t just make music but instead “creates worlds” that truly transport her listeners.
“That’s why I love Eurovision so much – because it allows me to create an entire world when I’m on stage,” Loreen says. As the only woman to win the iconic song contest twice, with Euphoria in 2012 and Tattooin in 2023, Loreen is acutely aware of Eurovision’s platform as a “beautiful, loving space where people gather around sounds and images”. Now, every new song she puts out is conceived as an experience to savour on several levels. “As a listener, you have all the elements there: you can see it, hear it, feel it, smell it,” she says. “My art isn’t about one thing – it’s the whole, it’s the layers, it’s the message.”
There’s no doubt this message is travelling far and wide: Loreen has more than 2 billion streams to her name globally. Her intoxicating electropop gem Tattoo topped the charts in 10 countries, including her native Sweden, and peaked at number two in the UK. The music video for Is It Love?, her equally heady follow-up single, exceeded a million views in less than two weeks when it premiered in October, and she will soon hit 1 million TikTok followers. But, of course, stats alone only tell half the story.
Loreen’s fans are so passionate that they make supercuts of her saying “darling” – a term of endearment she picked up at Eurovision in Liverpool – and flood her posts with the LGBTQ+ community’s highest compliment:
“Mother!” “At first, when I saw that, I was like, ‘I’m not that old!'” Loreen says with a laugh. “But then it hit me that whenever I was performing Tattoo, I had so much love in my body for everyone collectively that there was a very motherly energy there.”