Lykke Li, 'Youth Novels' (LL)

Swedish elf eschews dancing queendom for minimalist throb.

The endlessly quotable single "Little Bit" -- "For you I keep my legs apart / And forget about my tainted heart," the singer coos over spare electro clatter -- is already a viral smash, but much of Li Lykke Timotej Zachrisson's debut is nearly as riveting. Again and again, the approach proves bulletproof: Her voice is mousy, the low end juicy, the melodies sketchy, the choruses huge. And the joyous high of "Breaking It Up" points to a musically fleshier future. She should lose the spoken-word bits, though; they don't even work for her goddess Madonna.

Comments

Got something to say?

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • No HTML tags allowed
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
  • Use <!--pagebreak--> to create page breaks.

More information about formatting options

Are You Human?
If so, enter the four-letter code below to post your comment.
Image CAPTCHA