That's just some of the high praise for Norwegian pop superstar Dagny. She recently released her latest single "Brightsider" ahead of a summer of Norwegian festival appearances and a run of headline shows in London, Berlin and Amsterdam. "Brightsider" follows the release of Dagny's critically-acclaimed first album Strangers / Lovers in 2020 and her 2021 collaborative single with Astrid S, "Pretty".

Inspired by those with a natural ability to always look at the glass half-full, even in the most taxing circumstances - Dagny depicts how she herself, through a period of little new urges and superficial stimuli, felt the desire to create a space to dream and to look forward to the very best life has to offer.

An effervescent, lighthearted slice of indie-pop radiating with optimism, Dagny went on to say: "One of my strengths and best qualities is precisely that I can see the positive instead of digging myself down. 'Brightsider' became an outlet for this."

In an exclusive interview she had with One Music PH, she also said that, “‘Brightsider' for me has different kind of ways that it’s important for the last year. It was written during the pandemic, there really wasn’t a lot going on at the time, I wasn’t traveling and I wasn’t touring. We weren’t really able to do our job. I think as a creative where you write about your life in some way, you kind of have to have inputs…Well, I need inputs to write about music. I could tell in the music that I was writing that it was very stale (making linear hand gestures) and it wasn’t really feeling inspiring at all. I think it was just a reflection of the situation I was in. At some point I just told the guys that I want to record and write something that feels like something that I want to feel rather than how I’m feeling. I wanna look forward to playing the festivals and I want to look forward to meeting new people and have connections with people again. ‘Brightsider’ is really about that, it;s about holding onto the things that make you feel something and just letting yourself be consumed by that feeling, I guess.

Dagny recently embarked on a sold-out Norwegian tour that lasted for over two months, selling over 16,000 tickets in the process. She now returns to play a headline show in London on 17th September, along with dates in Berlin and Amsterdam, a busy summer of Norway festivals - perhaps most notably a prestigious slot on the main stage at Norway's biggest summer festival Øyafestivalen alongside Gorillaz, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, and Florence and the Machine.

"For me, playing live has always been the alpha and omega of being a musician," says Dagny. “Almost like the meaning of life, actually. I have been working on this song (and more new music!) and I'm so excited to bring it to the stage later this summer."

The pandemic brought about a different way of looking at things for her. “Creatively, it wasn’t that great for me…The pandemic was kickstarting a lot of creativity for a lot of people because it was a new situation and people were making pretty mellow stuff, and maybe some reflective stuff, but I really wanted to write an album that feels really upbeat. I’d like to make an album that could translate to the light side of things. So for me, it was the opposite of what I was feeling inspired by. But at the same time, I can’t really complain because I think that even if I wasn’t able to tour and do festivals and stuff I was able to spend a lot of time in the studio and I was surrounded by friends and family, and I think it would be stupid of me to complain because a lot of people found themselves in a lot harder situations than I did. Not that you’re not allowed to feel what you feel, but I was really trying to focus on the positive and I was trying to think of it as a challenge, how I could get by in the best possible way. I guess at the end of the day most people were doing that, and I’m happy more people are getting back to their normal lives now.”

When asked about moving from having a deal with Republic Records in the US to going independent forming her own label Little Daggers Records, she said: “Good question. I really had a great experience working with Republic in the US. My great experience came from the fact that I enjoyed working with the people I met there. And I think everybody had really good intentions, but the truth was there was just too much distance between them being in the US and me being in Scandinavia and Norway, and we weren;t able to see each other a lot, and it made it hard to get work done. And I really love to work be really hands on with everything, so I decided to do a more independent approach ‘cause I felt I could have more control for myself, and I felt that I could get my hands dirty with everything and I felt I could learn a lot from taking more control. So now I’m still with Universal, but this time with Norway and Germany, but it’s more of a licensing agreement, so that gives me more creative freedom to choose what I would like to do and take charge of it myself.”

Following the release of her debut album Strangers / Lovers in May 2020, Dagny has  consistently proven that her songwriting prowess is in peak form, with good reviews from The Guardian ("thundering synthpop explosion”), The Independent ("dazzling pop"), BBC Music ("one of 2020's most assured debuts"), The Metro ("sleak, neat set of bops - Albums Of The Week") and more.

Dagny's music has been streamed over a billion times across all streaming services, she's been nominated for 6 Norwegian Grammy's (Spellemannprisen), co-written songs for Katy Perry, Ashnikko, and Julie Bergan, and collaborated with acts including EDM duo Seeb, American super-producer Steve Aoki, Liverpool indie-rock heroes The Wombats and Spanish-English indie-pop outfit Crystal Fighters.