Swedish singer-songwriter Lykke Li has an upcoming album and she dropped some new song and video last Tuesday. You should prepare your Kleenex before listening, but I guess I could have gone with the song without the clip! It’s a poignant tune with a very emotional Lykke Li and nothing else than an acoustic guitar to back her up, a sort of ballad written to break your heart, pushing Li’s heartfelt and crying-baby vocals to the frontline, a song with a retro vibe reminiscent of those you could hear in the 60s.
But I am not that sure about the video! Talk about simple, the camera is turning for 3:50 minutes around Lykke Li, who looks like a girl just recued from a storm. She seems in such pain, her hair in her face, her back bent over the entire world’s misery, not moving an inch to probably echo the title of the song ‘Love me like I’m not made of stone’… To me, the video is redundant and a bit parodic of the singer, the song was already sobbing enough by itself that I wonder whether this puppy eyes look – the kind that have seen too much for a young age – was truly necessary.
‘Every song on the album is a power ballad,’ she said, ‘Like one of those old radio stations. This is a slow dance; a slow burner. I wrote [“No Rest for the Wicked”] in Sweden when I was packing up my shit, and I’d just gotten out of a relationship and it was a horrible time. I just had the hurt, shame, sadness, guilt, longing. In the verse, I’m referring to myself pleading guilty but I’m referring to all of us.’ Okay your hurt Lykke, we got it, but who doesn’t?
Her album ‘I Never Learn’ will be out via LL/Atlantic on May 6th, and we already have the tracklist:
1. I Never Learn
2. No Rest for the Wicked
3. Just Like a Dream
4. Silverline
5. Gunshot
6. Love Me Like I’m Not Made of Stone
7. Never Gonna Love Again
8. Heart of Steel
9. Sleeping Alone
Plus Lykke Li has announced some world tour dates with stops in New York and Los Angeles!
4/24 Stockholm, Sweden @ Berns
4/27 Brussels, Belgium @ AB
4/29 Berlin, Germany @ Astra
4/30 Munich, Germany @ Kesselhaus
5/2 Cologne, Germany @ E-Werk
5/3 Utrecht, Netherlands @ Tivolivredenburg
5/6 Paris, France @ Trianon
5/8 London, England @ Village Underground
5/9 London, England @ Village Underground
5/15 New York City, NY @ Apollo Theatre
5/19 Los Angeles, CA @ The Theatre at the Ace Hotel