Happy 15th Anniversary to Lykke Li’s debut album Youth Novels, originally released January 30, 2008.
2008 was a great year for evocative, dreamy music. Projects like M83 and Air France created lush, danceable soundtracks for the “indie sleaze” era. Fleet Foxes were making twee folk art, transporting listeners to a simpler life. And from Sweden, a longtime purveyor of pop music, came a joyful, minimal, pitch perfect backdrop to the shallow optimism of the late aughts.
Lykke Li’s debut album Youth Novels is an epochal illustration of this turn of the millennium Scandinavian movement. Entirely produced by Björn Littling (a member of fellow Swedish indie stalwarts, Peter, Björn and John), Youth Novels has the charm of unrepentant dance music, but with wistful lyrics and sparse production. The album is an artful expression of young adulthood, expressive but rarely reflective, Li never getting bogged down by too much introspection. Released January 30, 2008, Youth Novels quickly found a place in the “indie sleaze” moment of the time. Li’s tales of youthful insouciance feel universal; she wants to dance and love, and when she can’t have those things, she wants to cry.
From the first notes of “Melodies and Desires,” Lykke Li paints a sparse, dramatic landscape. She hasn’t begun to sing yet, stating her thesis in a whispered spoken word (perhaps a precursor to her future collaborations with rappers like A$AP Rocky and her hip-hop style vocals on her 2018 album so sad, so sexy), giving instructions on how to experience her world— “Love is the harmony / Desire is the key / Love is a symphony / Now play it with me.” The tone is set and you are invited to a cozy, candlelit world of simple romance. Youth Novels serves as an introduction to Li’s signature blend of electronic and pop music, setting the stage for a music career still going strong nearly two decades later.
The album’s biggest single “Little Bit” is a sign of the times. It draws a line to fellow Swedes, The Knife’s 2003 album Deep Cuts and their inventive use of steel drum and other instrumentals found a long way from Stockholm. “Little Bit” is an ideal entry to Li’s music. A sexy pop song, its popularity is the most resilient of the Youth Novels tracks, finding apt placement in Victoria’s Secret commercials and television shows. The bossa-nova styling of the track and Li’s breathy vocals combine to create an instant earworm.
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The centerpiece of Youth Novels is the big, breathy ballad “Tonight.” A song about longing and the intense emotion of young love, “Tonight” feels like a crescendo of the album’s narrative. It has the same lush, darker tones of Li’s future work, a sign of good things to come, and helping to cement her as one of culture’s spookiest Swedish pop stars. Other standout tracks include “Let It Fall,” “Dance, Dance, Dance,” and “I’m Good, I’m Gone.” “Let It Fall” is an ode to a good cry, a surprisingly upbeat track about the power of self-soothing. The chorus repeating, “so happy,” sounds like a woman convincing herself, not totally sold on the concept of optimism, but aspiring towards it.
With the debut of Youth Novels, Lykke Li made her mark on the indie sleaze canon, with her signature enigmatic, minimal pop music. In the tradition of Swedish pop stars, Lykke Li took a small, personal album, hailing from a faraway world, and made global impact through its universal themes. Forlorn, subdued and sexy, like the side swept bangs of a 2000s American Apparel ad, Youth Novels landed on the scene right in time to establish Lykke Li as one of the indie standouts of the turn of the 2000s.
LISTEN: