Pop sensation Dagny about queer fandom and the direction of her second album -TGN

Norwegian pop singer Dagny on the moment she realized she had a queer fan base, and the change of direction on her forthcoming second album. (Getty/Per Ole Hagen)

“I feel very much at home at this festival,” says Norwegian pop star Dagny, fresh off the stage at London’s Mighty Hoopla festival.

Dressed in a black and white playsuit and dark glasses, with blonde hair slicked back, the 32-year-old singer, born Dagny Norvoll Sandvik, is chilling backstage but still buzzing with adrenaline. She just performed her single “Heartbreak in the Making” and the audience loved it.

Standing on stage against a multi-colored backdrop belting out various electro-pop hits is no wonder she feels right at home. Like an unspoken queer festival, Mighty Hoopla is bursting with people who know and love Dagny.

Her song from 2017 “I love you so much” was an instant hit with LGBTQ+ pop fans, so much so that Katy Perry turned it into her platinum single “Never Really Over” two years later, clearly aware of its queer and commercial appeal.

Dagny’s 2020 debut album Strangers/lovers brought similar adoration from the community.

At first she didn’t know that she had built up a large queer fan base. Dagny arrived as a fully formed pop artist during the height of the pandemic, so meet-and-greets were a no-no. However, in 2022, that all changed.

“We went on a European tour last year and it was so much fun, and I realized that we have a huge following of people from the LGBTQ+ community,” Dagny tells PinkNews.

While it hasn’t been long since she realized her affinity for her queer fans, they’ve already taught her to be herself and trust her instincts.

‘I don’t want to go for less is more, I want to go for more is more’

“It sounds like I’m talking about Norway, but I’m really not, but in Norway… we have a lot of musicians (who are like the) girl next door, rocking out in your normal everyday clothes. But when I go on stage I want to be a little extra, I want to dress up, I want to have an outfit that feels different than what I would wear to the store on Tuesday,” she says.

“I wasn’t sure if there was room for that. Then I thought: I like that. I don’t want to go: ‘less is more, I want to go for more is more’.”

Watching her LGBTQ+ fans come to her shows in whatever they feel comfortable in has taught her she should be able to do the same. “If that’s an exaggeration, that’s fine. If that’s extra, that’s fine. If it’s very casual, that’s fine too.”

Her latest track is a slight but discernible shift from her signature brand of maximalist pop, and it’s a preview of what’s to come from her forthcoming, highly anticipated sophomore album. There’s a hint of early 1990s nostalgia – think All Saints or Natalie Imbruglia – and Dagny herself notes that she had Alanis Morissette and The Cardigans in mind when she made the song.

“Strangers/lovers (is) very electropop,” she says. “That was very inspiring to me at the time, and it still is, but once you do, you feel like you have to find something new to inspire you. You don’t want to rewrite the same song over and over again.”

‘A lot of my music is that mix between being very cheerful, but there is also a melancholy in it’

As a ’90s kid’ who discovered her love of music through the Spice Girls – ‘I had the t-shirt, I had the stickers, I knew all the dances. I was Mel B” – she was overwhelmingly inspired by the early 2000s. “That’s what my horn was honking. A lot of the music on this album will be more influenced by that,” she reveals.

Dagny is used to writing about heartbreak. Half of her debut album is about the breakdown of a relationship. This time, however, her lyrics can be stripped of their pop sheen.

“A lot of my music is like that mix between being really happy, but there’s also a melancholy to it. Like the howl dance,” she says, citing one of her influences, Robyn and her epic back catalog of cry-in-the-club Scandipop. “But this new record feels a bit rawer and a bit more vulnerable. Maybe. I’m still working on it.”

However, Dagny fans need not worry. The album will be absolutely recognizable, with pop at its core. The possibilities are endless: she would also like to work with a strange talent, such as Olly Alexander.

“I just like a great pop hook and a great pop song,” she says.

Her parents are also musicians, although they specialize in jazz bossa nova.

“Growing up in a jazzy environment and going to school with classical and jazz music, people always kind of laughed at pop because it’s so simple,” she says. “But I think sometimes the simplest and the easiest thing (music is) is almost the hardest thing to do.

“There wasn’t much pop happening in Norway when I started. I was a little worried about how that would turn out, but I think people like it.

“Heartbreak in the Making” is out now.