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May 6, 2014She sounds every bit the wounded princess, unwilling to let anyone help her pick up the pieces as she delivers these lovely, sad songs from behind a shroud of her own making.
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May 7, 2014I Never Learn is a brave album--it could very well alienate more fans than it brings in. But Li's songwriting is exquisite in its vulnerability; she has never sounded more sure of her aesthetic than she does in her most miserable moment. Like Beyonce's self-titled LP last year, this is a "grown-woman" album, but one focused on the sobering end of youth rather than the blissful beginnings of adulthood.
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May 6, 2014Li virtually proves to herself that pop need not be soulless and manufactured.
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Apr 30, 2014Though her personal tragedy has been transformed into an affecting record of real beauty, one truly hopes Li’s next chapter isn’t quite so agonising.
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May 8, 2014Every track on this album is relatable and takes us on an emotional journey through the steps of a breakup, which in Li’s interpretation seems to be frustration, pain and ultimately loneliness.
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May 2, 2014The music might seem cold, but when you’re surrounded by it, enveloped in it, it can keep you warm, too, like a glacier cave or an igloo.
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Apr 30, 2014Just like love itself, it’s an album you will fall for despite (or even because of) its flaws and imperfections as much as the real moments of truth and beauty it provides.
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May 5, 2014Each song feels carefully placed, but many end abruptly, leaving something unfinished.
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Jun 18, 2014The words would be perhaps somewhat unremarkable without the grandiose sweep of sonic majesty that surrounds them.
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May 6, 2014A compact, nine-song, 32-minute album that suggests an artist just hitting her stride, Li's new album seems to have pinpointed the locus of power in her voice.
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MagnetMay 19, 2014There is something effortlessly contagious and opulent about her melodies and cozy rhythmic kink. [No. 109, p.57]
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MojoMay 15, 2014Anyone seduced by the standout Wounded Rhymes track Sadness Is A blessing will be left winded by the even more sorrow-stricken I Never Learn. [Jun 2014, p.92]
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May 2, 2014The nine songs gathered on her third record beautifully convey heartache, loss and desolation. It’s not just in the songwriting--although, that is, of course, wonderful. It’s also in the production.
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May 12, 2014More so than Wounded Rhymes or Youth Novels, I Never Learn is a record for a radio-loving crowd who wouldn’t have a problem with the lack of variety in content matter or the relative sameness in sound and composition.
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May 6, 2014[A] taut, intense collection of songs.
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May 5, 2014We’re used to breakup albums that assume you just want to crawl into a hole and die, but I Never Learn is for the times when heartbreak is so life-affirming that you want to share the feeling with the world.
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May 7, 2014Despite the finality of what’s supposed to be the third installment of a three-part series, I Never Learn promises more in the future as Lykke Li keeps moving along her own singular path, personally and artistically.
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Apr 29, 2014The album's Spector-ish arrangements, thick with multitracked vocals and densely layered instruments, don't always add as much as they should.
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May 5, 2014Though she's largely eschewing Youth Novels's bubbly synth-pop and Wounded Rhymes's slick power ballads for simpler arrangements and derelict instrumentation, Li still manages to make the ramshackle music of I Never Learn sound grand and, perhaps more impressively, inject a kind of dark romanticism into her depictions of crippling separation.
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Apr 29, 2014This is 100% bittersweet, but it's honest, it's genuine and we see Li's true colours, hopefully shining back on us.
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May 5, 2014This is harsh, unyielding stuff, and most of this jolting album contains more the same. On her two previous albums, Lykke Li has been something of a floating presence, but everything about this album is intensely grounded.
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May 12, 2014Those who had their hearts set on another batch of coy, cloudy electro-pop from the Swedish singer/songwriter might consider the song [Gunshot!] a bummer, but for the rest of us, it and the other eight tracks that comprise I Never Learn make for a stirring, pristinely rendered expression of heartache.
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UncutApr 29, 2014You'd struggle to find a more affecting ode to the selfishness of love than this. [Jun 2014, p.80]
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May 5, 2014It's quite frankly perfect pop, and despite its occasional missteps, that's something Li's trilogy has flaunted in abundance.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 137 out of 149
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Mixed: 6 out of 149
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Negative: 6 out of 149
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Jul 22, 2014
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May 9, 2014
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Sep 5, 2014