On her new album so sad so sexy, pop’s goth hero Lykke Li cuts her usual brooding nostalgia for synth-soaked trap and R&B takes without losing her blue. Arriving four years after 2014’s I Never Learn, she enlisted a new batch of producers for her latest, including Skrillex, Rostam Batmanglij, Malay (Frank Ocean, Zayn), T-Minus (Drake, Kendrick Lamar), Ali Payami (Ariana Grande, Taylor Swift), and Jeff Bhasker (Kanye West, Harry Styles) as well as a feature from Oregon rapper Aminé on “two nights.”
According to Li, the contemporary influence comes from her newfound love of radio. “For the first time since I’ve been alive, I actually genuinely like modern music,” she recently told Entertainment Weekly. “Before, I only listened to old music, and now I think [modern music] is the most wonderful thing. Hip-hop is so big. I love listening to the radio here, and it blows my mind in a way.”
Ahead of so sad so sexy, Li released “hard rain,” “deep end,” “utopia,” “two nights,” and “sex money feelings die,” accompanying the first three with steamy, trippy visuals that live up the album title. Listen to the full-length below.
