Sanna, Shirley & Sonja

Sanna, Shirley & Sonja emerged in 2008 as a Swedish supergroup assembled specifically to record the holiday collection Our Christmas, which ascended to the top of the national charts. The lineup united Sanna Nielsen, who entered the world on November 27, 1984, in Edenryd, Sweden; Shirley Clamp, born February 17, 1973, in Borås, Sweden; and Sonja Aldén, who arrived on December 20, 1977, in St Albans, England. Prior to that seasonal project the three had never joined forces. Individually, however, they ranked among the country’s leading female pop performers of the period. Clamp broke through first, landing inside the Top Five during 2004 via the album Den Långsamma Blomman and its opening track “Min Kärlek.” She repeated the achievement the following year with Lever Mina Drömmar and the single “Att Älska Dig.” Nielsen followed, having already issued her debut album Silvertoner in 1996; her decisive breakthrough arrived only in 2006 when the fourth album Nära Mej Nära Dej climbed to number twelve. Two years afterward she reached number one with Stronger and the single “Empty Room.” Aldén completed the trio’s ascent, entering the upper echelon in 2007 when her first album Till Dig reached number two and yielded the number-three single “För Att Du Finns.” She stayed in the Top Five the next year with Under Mitt Tak. Capitalizing on these peaks, Nielsen, Clamp, and Aldén formed Sanna, Shirley & Sonja and released Our Christmas roughly a month before the holiday. The set remained in the Top Five for six weeks, three of them at number one, and introduced the charting tracks “All I Want for Christmas” and “My Grown Up Christmas List.”