Britta Persson

Britta Persson's smart, engaging pop songs about the ups and downs of romance suggest that sometimes boys do make passes at girls who wear glasses, even if the results aren't always happy for everyone. Britta Persson was born in Uppsala, Sweden, in 1981 and started writing songs while she was a student at the University of Vaxjo, where she was studying science. When not busy working as a lab assistant, Persson would occasionally venture out to perform her songs on campus and at local clubs (she was somehow wrangled into playing a Love and Sexually Transmitted Diseases Awareness event, where tunes like "You Are Not My Boyfriend" and "Defrag My Heart" doubtless had a certain resonance), and in 2005 began writing the songs that would become her first LP, Top Quality Bones and a Little Terrorist. With the help of Swedish rocker Kristofer Åström, Persson went into a studio in 2006, and with Persson accompanied by Peter Hermansson (piano and accordion), Joanna Eriksson (violin), Mattias Friberg (bass), and Per Nordmark (percussion), the album was finished in a week. Released in the summer of 2006, Top Quality Bones and a Little Terrorist became a major critical success in Sweden and received similar buzz throughout Europe.