Lykke Li

I think a lot of you might have already heard one of her songs called I Follow Rivers. It was once a summer banger in multiple countries and it’s still frequently played on the radio. But what you actually hear there is a remix made by The Magician, so I thought I could share with you the original version of this song, which comes from Lykke Li’s second album Wounded Rhymes (2011). If you have heard them both, which one do you like better? Because I like the original one more, the melody is more mellow, gentle and most of all – melancolic, which is a distinctive trait of her songs in general. Not to mention the fact that the lyrics are actually pretty deep, of course they can be interpreted in different ways (and Lykke likes to write such ambiguous, semi-poetic lyrics), but to me it says about the death, or even a fatal destiny that follows you no matter where you are. I don’t know, it just gives off  memento mori vibes, especially if you link it to the music video. And if you think about it, the remix version, made in retro house style, which naturally incites you to dance, may be generally interpreted as danse macabre song. But that’s just one way to look at it.

Lykke Li is one of my favourite solo artists and songwriters. She tends to blend different styles of music, like dream pop (which I recently made a blog entry about), electronic and indie music. Most of her songs have a very specific ambiance, the way she records them make us listeners think, that she’s singing underwater. What’s more, her way of singing is very often lazy, or slurred. These little mannerisms create very melancholic, sad, introspective and emotional recordings.

That’s why most of her fans (including me) were (more or less pleasantly) surprised by the new album released this year after four years of hiatus.

So Sad, So Sexy, a fourth album in her musical career, is a huge leap forward from the previous album, which undeniably displays her growth as an artist and as a person. For the first time, she decided to incorporate some trap/rap elements and blend it with pop sound, which is pretty daring in itself, but it sounds quite  interesting, and personally I really enjoy her new material. Most importantly, she didn’t lost her touch in songwriting, the lyrics are still emotional, maybe a little more fierce, crude, less poetic, but they resonate with me nonetheless. And you can feel that she bares her soul with us.

Interesting fact : Lykke Li became a mother in 2016. Two years later, with her comeback, on Mother’s Day she had uploaded a song, Utopia, which she dedicated to her mother who passed away a year prior. The music video was made of old recordings from her childhood and new footage filmed with her own son.