Customer Reviews

Youth Novel

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Lykke Li is Sweden's latest Pop export and she's gotten the inevitable comparisons to fellow Nordic Pop stars Robyn and Annie, but in truth, her style is miles different from those two. 22 years old she may be, but her music is far ahead of her years, even her arty cover photo sets her apart from those two.

Her debut "Youth novels" is produced by Björn Yttling of Peter Bjorn and John and Lasse Mårtén, it is rather experimental and dreamy, fitting her light airy vocals to a tee.

In an album awash in brilliance, standouts include "Dance dance dance" (tapped percussion and strummed percussion, a squidgy Sax solo building to a nice choir finale), the sunny "I'm good, I'm gone" (with a killer chorus and lovely keyboard flourishes), the acoustic/Pop "Let it fall", the lilting Jazz/Folk "Little Bit" (which wouldn't sound out of place on a Kings of Convenience CD), the stark yet astonishingly beautiful ballad "Hanging high", the acoustic spoken largely instrumental "This trumpet in my head" (of course daintily adorned with trumpet playing), the buzzing Björk-like "Complaint department", the hand clap-filled Jazzy/Synth number "Breaking it up", and the brooding, almost hymnal closing number "Window blues" (with haunting harmonies).

This album is incredibly clever pop music with a great attention to detail. If only all Pop music could be this intelligent. I think we'll be hearing a lot more of Ms. Li in the near future.

Ignore the person who says this is not for over 20's, I am late 30's and love this album. It is full of great tunes, very catchy with strong beats. It is best described as electronic pop, but I think it will strongly appeal to some Hip Hop heads too. It is from Sweden but lyrics are in English.
Buy it!!!

Seeing some of the ageist comments on here made me reflect..... good music can be enjoyed by anyone... of any age.
This ablem has entertained me for several months now - and i am 62. I was brought up on the staples of hippydom and hard rock, but the album reaches across those boundaries and has given me hours of listening pleasure.

zippydedodah

Peter Bjorn and John influence... true. But Lykke Li transcends what they were influenced by. There is just something about this Scandi-Pop, if you pardon me, that sings every time. Lykke Li is right there in with the whole Icelandic, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish pop thing. I don't know what it is, but isn't it easy to know that this is Scandinavian Pop? It's unmistakable!

Now hey, everyone blends everything. Can you hear Tegan and Sarah in the vocals? Emiliana Torrini? Morcheeba? It's easy to see for me; it's really nice.

This album is slightly uneven, but the first half (six songs) has stand-out tunes (please concentrate on these!!). Tracks 7 through 9 seem a bit of a miss. Then track 10, "Breaking It Up", through 12 are pretty good.

This is an "Ágætis Byrjun" (excellent start).


Steve

So this turned out to be a review on her vocals...wasn't intentional, just turned out that way.

I tend to be quite particular with female voices. However, in the past year, I've managed to find two I absolutely love: Lykke Li and The Ting Tings lead singer, Katie White. I'm seriously being honest in saying that the last female voice I've truly enjoyed as much as these two is Shirley Manson from Garbage. I realize this is a review about Lykke Li, however, you certainly need something to compare her voice with and I consider the other two to be in good company.

Highlights:

Little Bit
Breaking It Up
Dance Dance Dance
I'm Good, I'm Gone
Tonight

As stated below, Ignore the 1 Star Review as I'm pushing 30 and this album is more definitive of who I am than 99% of what I listened to when i was under 20.

Li Lykke Timotej Zachrisson may have won over an entire new audience with "Wounded Rhymes" (2011) but its on this sparkling confection from 2008 that the seeds were initially sown. "Youth Novels" marks the debut of young Lykke Li, but it is anything but unassured. In fact, researchers of debut outings might compare this very favorably with "Tidal" by Fiona Apple way back in 1996. Aesthetically, it remains without peer even in the years since its' release, even though fellow Swede Frida Hyvonens' "Silence is Wild" comes pretty close (but to be fair, that was Hyvonen's third outing on disc). For mainstream music listeners, there isn't much here that would grab them upon first listen (although you might see contrary statements in other descriptions of this album), which explains Lykke's inexplicable lack of popularity in many market pockets that would normally be open to an indie release getting wider acclaim (Bon Iver's "For Emma Forever Ago" and Vampire Weekends' mammoth gains in visibility being prime example).

Undeniably, the contents herein are splendid. Lykke draws upon two very varied genres of music - shoegaze & electropop, to create what is essentially a tribute to the amalgamation of said genres. Within these, there are subgenres of folk, Britpop, Motown, with a few jazz influences thrown in for good effect. Thankfully, all of these influences aren't quite present on one track at the same time, giving the album a sense of space to breathe and carve out different identities within the length of an hour. Lykke isn't a fantastic vocalist, per se, and I would definitely put her in the same category as Stina Nordenstam or even Julianna Barwick in some respects, but she does try, on some of the slower numbers here, to evoke a Hope Sandoval/Mazzy Star vibe that isn't altogether out of place.

There are many who would instantly compare "Youth Novels" to another fellow Scandinavian's magnum opus entitled "Body Talk". To compare Lykke to Robyn is a disservice because Robyn wears her pop sensibilities shamelessly on her sleeve (in her case, a good thing), while Li's intentions are sometimes dressed up in minimalist architecture while at the same time striving for things that are essential to a robust pop song, most notably a chorus that sticks and guarantees replay value. On this alone, the disc scores highly, as Li is adept at crafting a hook perhaps better than most young composers out there (except for Robyn, of course). Prime examples include "I'm Good, I'm Gone", which itself has gone on to spawn various remix versions that sadly aren't a patch on the original, and the stunning "My Love" that is absolutely brimming over with Justin Vernon sensibilities.

While the last few years have thrown up bonafide independent artists and given us masterpieces of the genre (most notably "Grey Ocreans" by Cocorosie, and "Have one on me" by the indisputably brilliant Joanna Newsom), its interesting to see Lykke take her place amongst such esteemed company. "Youth Novels" has a lot going for it, although its opening spoken word track could strike new audiences as pretentious and misleading (it does not set the tone of the album in any useful sense). It isn't quite a classic, but instead serves as a more than suitable introduction to a fine new musician. Upon first release, many new listeners were put off by the seemingly pop-tinged debut single & video, but again, these are misconceptions as the record is more an underground minimalist piece with abstract overtones - certainly not something a regular audience would either comprehend or appreciate.

In 2011, Lykke would go on to broaden her palette with "Wounded Rhymes", easily a greater, more accomplished work that "Youth Novels", but to see how it all began and to discover some music that you wouldn't probably immediately think of as `essential', this is a vital purchase. Like Newsom and Devendra Banhart, Lykke Li is an artist whose work reveals itself upon multiple listenings, and if growing with a full-length album counts as one of your imperative life experiences, this is exactly the sort of album you should be listening to. Also check out "Penelope" by Sarah Kirkland Snider, "The Magic Place" by Julianna Barwick; and "Ys" by Joanna Newsom, if you liked this. I suspect you'll find that all of them are essential to your growing music collection.

Four Stars.

Someone said if you're over 20 you won't like this.
I'm male and I'm now 49. I like this. A lot.
But then I also like Isis (not a female pop star) and Robyn and Foghat.
My collection is very far and wide a mix of genres.

Believe or Not I recently saw this artist mentioned on the Kids Post page in the Washington Post (in January I think).
So when I chanced upon her Parlaphone Video for "I'm Good, I'm Gone" on YouTube I thought to give it a try and I was very impressed.
I was not only impressed by her but by the assemblage of musicians for this very acoustic rendering of the track.
It was odd to say the least and not like a lot of vids with flash and sex.
That video led me to track down the album and any single and remix.
She is really fascinating.

I still find it odd that she was featured in the Kids Post section.
Why? She's not like Ms. Spears of 1999 or Ms. Cyrus of 2007.
Also, I don't think this artist was marketed to young teens here in the USA anyway as she is already over 20.

This is not for everyone but it's very interesting.

My first introduction to Lykke Li was through a friend via a youtube video for her song "Little Bit." I admit that I was hooked. The video was different in a good way and her voice was unique: soft, innocent and a little bluesy. Her sound is eclectic ranging from dance to indie to electro to blues. There's no other way to describe it. A very melodic album. I can't wait to see what else she has up her sleeve. All in all, a breath of fresh air in all the pollution streaming through the radio these days.

I absolutely love this singer. The best songs are "I'm good I'm gone" and "Let it fall." I am in my upper 30s and am impressed with how grown up her lyrics and music sound--considering she is a mere 22 years old!

Youth Novels is singer Lykke Li's first major US debut. Stand out tracks include I'm Good, I'm Gone and Little Bit. I hope this album blows up, her voice is absolutely stunning. The sparse instrumentation on a lot of the tracks definitely works to her advantage! Pick this album up if you're a fan of upbeat, mellow, female voices.