Lykke Li is Lucky Again
Image credit: Chloé Le Drezen
Swedish singer-songwriter Lykke Li has built a career on emotionally charged music that blends dream pop, indie rock and electronic influences. Emerging in the late 2000s with her debut album Youth Novels, Li quickly became known for her haunting vocals, cinematic soundscapes and deeply personal songwriting. Her work explores themes of love, heartbreak, longing and vulnerability, delivered with an intensity that feels both intimate and expansive. Across albums including Wounded Rhymes, I Never Learn; and so sad so sexy, she has continually evolved her sound while maintaining a distinctive emotional honesty. Her latest album, Afterparty, continues this trajectory, pairing melancholic lyricism with atmospheric production that reflects on desire, loss and emotional aftermath. Beyond music, Li’s aesthetic sensibility and enigmatic presence have made her a compelling figure in contemporary culture.
ALISON KUBLER spoke to the LYKKE LI about motherhood, the journey of women in pop music and her artistic aspirations.
You're joining me from Los Angeles, is that correct?
Yes.
Well, hi from Australia. We are literally so far apart right now. The magic of technology. Congratulations on the album. Is this promotion part the bit you least like, where you have to talk about the work?
Well, it depends. If someone wants to go super psychoanalytical or spiritual, I'm down for it, but I feel like I'm pretty bad at the other part.
Well, that always the dilemma, isn't it? I think it is the same for visual artists, this having to “explain” the work. I'm sure that must feel exhausting on some level.
It's more that after every interview I just like… “oh man, I probably seem pretty dumb”. I don't have the vocabulary to explain it properly because it's all pretty abstract.
And because you've made it! That is the work people.
I'm fascinated by you being a mother and making of work whilst you're also raising children. I pay my respect to you in terms of that, because I think that there is this history of female creators who are mothers who often don't get the recognition that they deserve until much later in their careers because of the role of motherhood. That's something you've spoken to a little bit in your music as well. Would you agree with that?
Actually, I've never spoken about motherhood in my music. But it's definitely something that I wrestle with, especially in the music industry. I don't even know if I'm in pop music per se, but I feel like in the music industry, women always have to be so one dimensional and that's something that I struggle with a lot. And even with the second child, I really was trying to find stories, literature about female artists specifically doing work. I was reading, I don't know if you've read that book, The Baby on the Fire Escape?
Oh, yes. I have actually read that book.
That was pretty harrowing! All the work that you read is completely harrowing. I think the thing that I was taught very early was that if you choose to become a musician, then you will not have children. So, when I was in my twenties, I was kind of mourning the fact that I wouldn't have children because I was now a musician.
You'd made a decision to be a musician.
Exactly. It's definitely very complex. I mean, for example, when I read, I almost only want to read female writers who have children. I'm reading Helen Garner’s diaries right now.
Oh, amazing. So that's a beautiful Australian link. I love that.
Yeah. It really, really makes me miss Australia.
Well, I mean, we love you down here.
I want to come, but I want to come for months if I can because it’s so far!
Image credit: Chloé Le Drezen
I wanted to ask you about the first track from Afterparty, Lucky Again, and that sample from Max Richter’s 2012 recomposing of Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, the “Spring” motif. What was the thinking behind that? It's a beautiful entry point to that song.
I think whenever I start an album, it's like you're back to being nothing. You have to build yourself into ‘something’ again. And this was very shortly after I had my second child, and I felt so out of body, and right before I had my second child, I was on my EYEYE tour, where I was a ripped dancer, so physically strong, and in command of my artistry. Then having a child removed all that, and I just became a blob again. I remember listening to that song a few months after having the baby. Just listening over and over again. I kind of imagined that I was in this movie. I do this a lot. I zoom out, I do a wide shot, and then I imagined that I was in this movie where I'd been in this horrible accident, which you could say that childbirth is, and I have to put myself back together as a wounded soldier.
So, I kept on just listening to that song so much, and it would just bring me the feeling of, oh my God, I want this song at my funeral, but also, I would want it at my wedding as well! It's just so deep and profound. That was really the song that I was just the most obsessed with. And then I was like, what if I sample that song? I've actually never sampled anything. It's weird. But I thought if there's anything to sample, it's definitely that song.
I would imagine, is that process quite freeing? Do you feel like you're playing a bit more or is that what it's about?
It's not complicated because you do have to clear the sample and then everyone gets angry at you because you have to give away points, and X, Y, and Z. And then the other song that I was obsessed with at the time was ‘Bittersweet Symphony’ by The Verve and there is this legendary story that they sampled The Rolling Stones. They got the master rights but not publishing rights. So had to give away all their royalties. I found that story so interesting because it's also exactly what the lyrics of that song are. So, I guess it's my turn to be in that dilemma.
And then we tried to replay it several times with a string orchestra, but there's just something about that recording, that also goes to show just the power of people in a room. You cannot recreate something like that. It was in that room at that specific time that something remarkable happened.
Actually, I went last year to see Max Richter with my daughter, and it was incredible. We kind of spontaneously cried. It was crazy.
I'm obsessed with him.
It is the thing that is often said about music, sound waves moving through the air, and then they hit you, and you receive them. It really felt like this amazing experience. When I was looking up how to pronounce your name, it was lovely to learn that it means happy. Is that right?
Yes, it means happy in Danish, which is ironic because I was not happy for so long, but now I feel I've kind of stepped into my birthright, my birth name. Somehow!
It seems logical to me that someone who writes such beautifully kind of melancholic pop, should have a name that means happy, which seems so perfect to me. I always think that the happiest pop songs are the saddest ones and vice versa. I know that's a bit of an existential thing, but what has brought you to this moment of happiness? What do you think that is, and how is it coming out in your music?
I mean, I think you do get wiser with age, and I think it's also just embracing the darkness and the light, while also understanding that life is just those two things all the time. We go in and out of that. Sometimes we're on the mountain, sometimes we’re in the valley. Just understanding that that is life, that nothing is ever the same. Everything changes. Extreme darkness, extreme lightness.
Image credit: Chloé Le Drezen
That absolute balance between the two. And I guess in this idea of, I was thinking about how you'd called the album Afterparty, is it this kind of emotional high or is it an emotional comedown? How do you see the songs sitting?
It's kind of both. I do think that it is a literal after-party. When you are at an after-party, you party like there's no tomorrow, and you have a euphoric hour perhaps where you feel so high, and everything is ahead of you, but then the sun does rise. And in Sweden, especially, if you go to an afterparty, you come home and it's like you cannot sleep because it's so bright. So bright. And then you feel like shit the day after you might've done something that you regret. So, it's both. And it's also that the afterparty is different from the pregame party. I'm in a different phase of life, and I thought that that phase is so interesting, and it's not something that so much pop music is about.
I think pop music is so much about youth and the future, the dreaming, but this is a little bit about the past and also understanding that the horizon. Someone described to me when my mom was dying, dying is seeing a sailboat quietly drift into the horizon. That's what death is. And I think there comes a point where you understand that there is a horizon and there is a sun that's going to rise or a big star that's going to fall on top of you. Just being aware of the bittersweetness of time.
I love that you said that thing earlier about imagining a film and you sort of being in a film and that music. Do you see your songs as visual things?
Yes. In my head I'm like, Francis Ford Coppola or Stanley Kubrick, with a super high budget, no limitations! And then the reality is not so much like that, but in my mind that's what's going on!
That's great. So, they're aural and visual for you.
I was interested in your cover art as well for the album, and how it appears as a kind of obfuscation of yourself. Is that sort of what you're going for, it's you, but it might not also be you?
Yeah, I think I'm just tired of which you realize when you start so young... that there is this objectification of women. Especially women that gets put on top of you. I remember in the beginning, when they would review my music, they would talk about my ‘baby cheeks’ or this and that. And then you kind of get in the category like, I'm a girl, I guess, in a man's world. And then the question becomes, “Am I ugly? Am I beautiful? Am I worthy?”. You spend so much time just in those paradigms. And I think arriving at this point, we're like, oh, I'm not just a young girl anymore. There's also a type of anger because then I realised how much time I wasted in that zone instead of just fuck it, learning how to play guitar, just being immersed in craft. So, there is a type of wanting to really shy away from that gaze and be free.
Yeah, it's an interesting thing that about design, it happens again to visual artists a lot where they've kind of pegged into you are this kind of artist and you are this kind of artist.
And then when you get to this point too, you realise, “oh wow, I've been around.” I mean, it feels like I've been around for 200 years, and there's a whole new generation under me. And then you realise, how actually for women in music, there's not many places to go. Men get to have the privilege of just being older and wiser. There is something wrong in our society where there is not that. That women are seen as the ‘crone.’ It's so boring. The women that I admire, are maybe more visual artists like Cindy Sherman, Tracy Emin, Marina Abramovic, real artists. I guess there is a hidden desire that I can just become a real artist, maybe one day!
I think you probably are a real artist already, Lykke. I think what's interesting about what you're saying is that obviously the desire is very great with artists, whether they're musicians, writers or visual artists, there's this aspiration to longevity. I mean, you're not here just for two seconds; you want people to listen to your music, hopefully in a hundred years, right? But I think so many things in our culture are tailored towards this immediacy and a kind of quick fix.
The music industry is just rotten, straight up rotten. When I look at someone like the dancer and choreographer Pina Bausch, I'm just like, oh my God, that's who I want to be.
What you're saying is interesting because there's probably only realistically a very few number of people who will rise to the top who will have that longevity. And when you say that about those visual artists whose work you admire, we forget that they went through great periods of darkness, not being accepted and not having that recognition.
Yes, like Louise Bourgeois! She didn't really have her break until so late in life. And when you see her interviews, she was like hardcore straight out of the gate.
Everything and nothing changes for women. It's always the same. Although I do feel that in culture there is more of a determination to look at what we've missed out on in the past and a desire to try to rectify it on some level. Do you feel that like that's a thing in music?
No. The thing is, I think I've actually been pretty naive because I've never felt this before, but that also might be because when I was young and cute, I was what this industry wanted. So, it's only now that I realise how horrid it is. It's like, “Oh, it's true!” I'm reading Liza Minelli's memoir, actually, right now. It's incredible. She did Cabaret, won an Oscar and then after that she could not get a good film!
How do you keep going? Are you a prolific maker? Does the music come to you easily?
No, it's more because I have two children. It's like a life puzzle. But once I am in the studio or wherever I need to be to be creative, I'm ‘on’. I've never had a dry spell. If anything, I have so much in me that wants to come out. It's just logistically hard to coordinate. I think that being an artist is really a vocation and a commitment, and the commitment is to keep going day in and day out through thick and thin. And I think especially if you read, that is what it is to be an artist. To just do it when nobody believes in you… that's what it is. And that is also what my life force is. I'm also super grateful that I have this fire, but I mean, I get discouraged like twenty times per day. I open Instagram, and my heart breaks!
Image credit: Chloé Le Drezen
Oh gosh, mine does too, and I just need to delete that thing, but I just keep doing it.
I say I’m off (Instagram) now, but then I'm like, “Oh, wait, I'm on an album!” The constant dilemma. I hate it. We're also so sensitive as artists, so it's not good. I don't need to see this. I need to be in my bubble. So, it is actually a really hard time where you also, you, the artist, are the one who's supposed to also ‘break’ your whole campaign. You are the marketing.
I think it's the same for visual artists. They're expected to talk about their work constantly, show their studio. This is how I paint. It's a very unusual. Have you found since becoming a mother, ironically, that you are probably more prolific because you have less time, you're better?
1000% Percent. And then also for all the logistical issues, it can feel impossible to be an artist and a mother at the same time. But at the same time, when the world turns its back on you, if you have a super shitty experience, then you come home, and it's like, actually, I love having kids because that's it. I'm just sitting on the floor with them in my lap. It is such a beautiful thing. It's just like the physicality of being at two places is difficult, but emotionally and spiritually, I think it's actually very compatible.
Yes, I would agree with that. I think the most successful I've professionally is since I had children, three of them. And it kind of drives you.
It drives you to your knees!
We should talk more about the album, but I think also this adds to this bigger holistic picture of yourself. Can imagine yourself making music forever?
Yeah, but also, I could imagine myself doing a modern dance show. I want to do everything. One day, I'll make a movie. I want to score a film. That is actually my dream, to leave the algorithm and the confines of pop music and become an album composer.
That would be an incredible thing. It strikes me that you're very good at being elastic and changing the way you work. Is that something you try to do consciously?
Yeah, always. I think the biggest thing we have to resist is just the things that are put on you as a woman, so many limitations, self-hatred… That is the thing that I think is the hardest thing that you constantly have to battle.
That's a very beautiful thing to end on, I think, Lykke. I think the album is incredible, and it's been really delightful to be able to speak to you. As someone who's listened to your music forever, it's lovely to flesh you out as a fully formed human being, as I knew you would be. All your music makes sense even more than it did before.
Thank you!
The Afterparty is out now through Virgin Music.
