LYKKE LI’S STILL SAD
Swedish singer-songwriter Lykke Li keeps it prolific with the mostly stripped-down sequel to So Sad So Sexy EP
“Lanymore.ife is short, I can’t spend any more time on an airplane playing in front of people who have no idea who I am. It doesn’t feel spiritual
I’m ready for a more intimate life,” explains Swedish indie-pop songstress Lykke Li in her recent Vogue interview in which she was asked whether she was planning to retire like she’d previously mentioned on her social media post. As it turns out, not only is she not retiring, Li’s co-organising the inaugural edition of YOLA DÍA, “a festival for people who hate music festivals” celebrating strong women in music set to take place in LA next Sunday.
On top of that, the Swedish singer-songwriter has come through with a new EP Still Sad Still Sexy, a six-track sequel to last year’s fourth studio record, the trap-influenced So Sad So Sexy. To most of her long-time fans, the album came as a bit of a surprise as it was a huge departure from her usual indie-pop sound. Some chalked it up to reinvention, but So Sad So Sexy merely reflected her interest in hip-hop which gets reinterpreted in a more organic
and stripped down way through this EP — “a counter-reaction” as she’s put it.
This manifests itself in a near-a capella “alt version” of So Sad So Sexy and Deep End, two standouts from the last album. Besides these, the EP also offers two previously unreleased tracks Baby Doves and Neon. The former is a straightforward after-hours R&B jam about the pains of young love (“Like baby doves/ Too young to know no better/ We were just down, d-down, whatever/ Tell me, why won’t you?”) while the latter is a lite-trap jam about not being afraid to love again (“I never love half-hearted/ I’m down to get bruised/ Who’s gonna let go hardest?”).
The rest of Still Sad Still Sexy contains remixes of Sex Money Feelings Die featuring Lil Baby and Snowsa and Two Nights Part II with Skrillex and Ty Dolla $ign, which, considering the whole premise of the EP, feel a little out of place, not to mention a bit showy. In fact, this EP would have fared better were there more alt versions of the songs from her last album. But hey, at least Lykke Li is not retiring, which is very much a blessing right?
Quotable lyrics: “We kiss better in darkness/ We drown out the light/ I don’t know where we started/ Where you became I” (Neon).
Listen to this: Neon, So Sad So Sexy, Deep End.