Early life
Carlsson was born in Vänersborg, Sweden on March 6, 1988[1] , and began singing at a very young age. She sang solo in front of a live audience for the first time whilst still at school. She also sang in the Vänersborg choir named 'Voice', citing legendary American singer-songwriter Stevie Wonder as her inspiration.
2005: "Idol"
Main article: Idol 2005
In the spring of 2005, 17-year-old Carlsson auditioned for the second season of popular Swedish singing competition Idol in Gothenburg, singing "Varje Gång Jag Ser Dig" by Lisa Nilsson. The four judges were all hugely impressed by the strong power of her voice and she successfully passed through to the theatre rounds of the contest. Her vocals continued to impress, and she made it to the semi-finals. To the dismay of the judges however, Carlsson did not get a place in the final eleven contestants through public voting, and when she again failed to grab a place through the special 'wildcard' round, they decided to pass her through to the finals as the judges' choice contestant.
Despite the lack of early public support, Carlsson went on to wow both the judges and the public during every week of the finals, and as a result made it into the grand finale without ever falling into the bottom two or three contestants. She performed a wide range of genres throughout the competition; What a Feeling by Irene Cara, Wonderwall by Oasis, Sk8ter boy by Avril Lavigne and many more. With 57% of the one million public votes cast during the final, she defeated Sebastian Karlsson and was crowned as the second Swedish Idol, and the first female to win the competition.
Carlsson is currently one of only four wildcard contestants to win an Idol competition anywhere in the world. She was preceded in 2004 by Canada's Ryan Malcolm and Kazakhstan's Almas Kishkenbayev, and followed in 2007 by Australia's Natalie Gauci.
Agnes Carlsson at a signing after winning Idol 2005–2006: Agnes and commercial success
Immediately after winning Idol, Carlsson signed a recording contract with Sony BMG and her debut single, "Right Here Right Now" was released. A week later, the song debuted at number one on the Swedish singles chart, a position it held for six weeks. The song was quickly certified double platinum for the sale of over 40,000 copies in Sweden. Just one week later, on December 19, 2005, her highly anticipated debut album Agnes was released to positive critical reviews that praised the power of Carlsson's voice, who was still only eighteen years old. The album immediately debuted at number one, and was certified platinum in its first week after selling almost 40,000 copies.
In March 2006, whilst touring in support of her debut album, Carlsson released her second single, "Stranded". Although it received positive critical reviews, the single did not gain commercial success and stalled in the singles chart at number twenty-seven. Despite this however, Carlsson's first album continued to enjoy high sales success, selling over 90,000 copies in Sweden by the time it officially left the Top 60 Albums chart.
2006–2007: Stronger and continued popularity
On August 22, 2006, only eight months after her Idol win, Carlsson's third single "Kick Back Relax" premiered on the TV-show "Sommarkrysset". The song, which would serve as the lead single from her much anticipated second album, was released on September 7 and narrowly missed the top spot on the Swedish singles chart, peaking at number two. Her second album, Stronger was released on October 11, less than a year after the release of her debut. Like its predecessor, Stronger debuted at number one on the albums chart, and went on to sell over 50,000 copies, certifying it platinum.One of the album's tracks, "Love Is All Around" has since been covered by numerous singers on three continents, the most notable being by Australian Idol alumni Ricki Lee Coulter, which peaked at number five in Australia and became one of that country's biggest hits in 2007.
On November 15, 2006, Carlsson released "Champion", the second single from her second album, which peaked at number nineteen. In early 2007, she embarked on her second national tour in just over a year. In December, she and her fellow Idol contestant Måns Zelmerlöw joined together for a huge Christmas campaign for clothing store MQ. In order to promote the company, they dueted on a cover of the Mariah Carey song "All I Want for Christmas Is You", which peaked at number three on the Swedish singles chart and was certified gold for the sale of 10,000 copies.
2008: Dance Love Pop and departure from Sony BMG
Agnes performing "Love Love Love" in the Swedish Melodifestivalen 2009In early 2008, it was announced that Carlsson had parted ways with her record label Sony BMG, with creative differences cited as the reason behind the split. She was quickly signed to independent label Roxy Recordings, and on August 11, "On and On", the fifth single of Carlsson's career was released as a digital download. Geared towards the dance and club genre, the single was a clear change of artistic direction for Carlsson's music, which had previously consisted of pop and RnB. The first public performance of the single was on August 16 during the Swedish TV-show "Sommarkrysset". The single spent four consecutive weeks at its peak of number 8, hit the top spot on the club chart and gained a gold certification.
On September 13, Kaj Kindvall, the host of the radio show "Tracks" announced that the title of Carlsson's highly anticipated third studio album would be Dance Love Pop. The album was released on October 28, 2009 and debuted on the Swedish albums chart at number 5 with sales of 100,000 copies. On November 24, "Release Me" was released as the second single from the album and peaked at number 2.
On October 14, 2008, it was announced that Carlsson would compete in Melodifestivalen 2009, the competition that would decide Sweden's entrant to the Eurovision song contest. The song "Love Love Love", written by Anders Hansson, was chosen as her official entry song. Carlsson later confirmed this in an interview in the Swedish newspaper Göteborgsposten, and it was further confirmed on December 2, 2008, by SVT. Hansson had previously worked as the executive producer on Carlsson's third studio album Dance Love Pop, co-writing almost all of the record's tracks, including hit singles "On and On" and "Release Me". Originally, it was said that Carlsson was to perform "Love Love Love" as a duet with fellow Swedish singer and former A-teens-member Marie Serneholt, but when it was later decided that Serneholt would be competing on her own, Carlsson took on "Love Love Love" as a solo performance. On February 28, 2009, Carlsson advanced to the final round of Melodifestivalen 2009 and eventually achieved 8th place with 40 points. On February 28, she officially released "Love Love Love" in Sweden, where it peaked at number 4. A deluxe two-disc version of her third studio album titled Dance Love Pop: The Love Love Love Edition, featuring single "Love Love Love" and the remixes and music videos of "On and On" and "Release Me" was released on April 1. Following its release, Dance Love Pop returned to the Swedish albums chart and peaked at number 12.
2009: Release Me, the road to international Success
In November 2008, the second single from "Dance Love Pop" was released in Sweden; "Release Me". It immediately entered the Swedish Singles Chart at 60 and later peaked at nine. This wasn't the same success for Agnes as it had been with "On and On", but the song gained a lot of attention abroad and in January 2009, it was announced that "Release Me" would receive an international launch during the forthcoming year. The move marked the first time that Carlsson's music would be distributed outside Sweden. The single made its first international appearance in Denmark, where it peaked at number six, followed by number seven in Flanders and number six in Wallonia. On April 1, Carlsson began her 23-date Dance Love Pop Tour in Skövde, Sweden. The tour was Carlsson's longest to date and her first to venture beyond Sweden, with two dates scheduled in Denmark and two in the UK.
"Release Me" gained massive remarks in the UK during the spring of 2009, and Carlsson was signed to the small independent record company 3Beat, and the song received its official UK release on May 31, 2009, proving to be a big hit, being picked up by most music channels, also with Carlsson performing the song and a few others at G-A-Y, the UK's biggest gay nightclub venue and also a live performance on GMTV, one of the UK's biggest breakfast shows. Release Me hit the top of Radio 1's A-list playlist, and eventually debuted at number three in the UK Singles Chart, and has continued to ride high in the top ten for many weeks. After eight weeks it managed to get a Silver certification with over 300,000 copies sold. In Ireland the song debuted at thirty-eight and later peaked at ten.
"On and On"
The second single from Agnes international debut album Dance Love pop. "Release Me" continued to conquer Europe, being released in most European countries and became a huge success in, among others, France, Belgium, Italy and Germany. Agnes made her first appearance outside of Europe in late July after being signed by Warner Music in Australia and with "Release Me" as the first single, entering the Australian Dance Chart at eleven in its first week of release. Later in July the major American record company Geffen Records announced that they too had signed Agnes and would release "Release Me" in the US on August 18, 2009. She also received a signing bonus of 1 million dollars ($1,000,000).This made Carlsson the first and to date only Swedish Idol contestant to be launched in America. Before landing on Interscope/Geffen's table, three of America's biggest record companies fought over Carlsson and her hit potential. In early 2010 a team consisting of 35 people that, in 2009, was assigned to make Lady Gaga the next star, started to plan Carlsson's U.S. launch.
Agnes made her first appearance in the U.S. on August 27, 2009 at a release party for her single "Release Me". Among the guests where the CEO of Interscope Records, Ron Fair, and he made a comment about their new signing "She has it all. She is an amazing singer, looks good, is fearless and humble. She is a mix of Alanis Morissette, Gwen Stefani and Christina Aguilera"
Agnes performing in 2006Agnes' second international single was "On and On", first released in the Netherlands on February 10, 2009 and later Poland, where the single peaked at 14 and 10. Later that year, "On and On" started to climb the charts in the francophone areas of Europe though it had not yet been released. This was only due to download sales from the album released earlier in 2009. It debuted at 27 in the Belgian-Wallonia Singles Chart[21] and after its release it peaked at seventeen. In the Belgian-Flandern Singles Chart it peaked at eight, making it the second top-ten hit in Belgium for Agnes. A new version has been recorded for the french release, called "On Se Donne", but even before the release of the single it peaked at fourteen in the French Download Chart and thirthy-seven in the Swiss Singles Chart.[23] "On and On" was released as the second single in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Hungary in May 2010, and as the third single in the UK in June.
Agnes during her summer tour 2009. In the UK the second single was "I Need You Now" which has been re sung and re produced to a remixed form of the original song for the single release. "I Need You Now" was officially released in the UK on the 16th November, 2009 and peaked at forty in the UK Singles Chart. "I Need You Now" was also released in Sweden on November 23, as an iTunes exclusive single and immediately entered the Swedish iTunes Chart at two. Later the same week it was released to other internet stores and although no promotion had been made and with very little airplay it entered the Swedish Singles Chart at ten and later peaked at eight, making it Carlsson's seventh top-ten hit in Sweden. The song was also released in a few other countries such as Italy, The Netherlands, Norway and Australia but failed to enter any charts.
After releasing "Dance Love Pop" in two different editions in Sweden, a third "International Edition" was released on December 21, 2009 exclusive with the tabloid Aftonbladet. The International edition contains the singles released in Sweden, "On and On", "Release Me", "Love Love Love" and "I Need You Now" together with a few other songs such as "Secret Love" and "You Rain".
In an interview with the Swedish news-site "ttela" Agnes revealed that she was going to start working with new material for her next album together with Anders Hansson and Sharon Vaugn in January 2010.
In February 2010 it was confirmed that Agnes's third French single would be Sometimes I Forget. It will serve as the follow up to the massive success of "Release Me" and "On and On", which combined has sold over 160,000 copies in France.The song will be released in Sweden as well, as Agnes' fifth single from "Dance Love Pop".
Her debut to the US, is "Release Me" and charted in 35 different countries! Here is the music video:
"Release Me" is just starting to pick up in the US and was this weeks most added pop track according to a banner AllAcess just put up this past weekend! The track is available on Itunes now
Discuss:
-Looks: White Leona Lewis in my opinion
-Will she be big?
-Who's bought it
-does anyone know if the albums been released here?
That song is great.