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Nov 3, 201167Wounded Rhymes functions as a young woman's bildungsroman, neatly capturing the tension between youth and adulthood that defines one's 20s.
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Aug 16, 201191The meaning's in the music, which to her considerable benefit shares the widespread Stockholm suspicion that the distinction between pop and dance music isn't worth troubling yourself over, but is nonetheless pinned for appearance's sake to the shades of yearning that mark it verbally.
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Apr 6, 201180I think it would be safe to say that while her latest release was noticed with excited anticipation, not many expected it to be quite this good.
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Mar 31, 201180Sonically it's a super-charged take on the girl-group sound, with thundering drums, multilayered vocals, heart-wrenching lyrics and loads of echo-all of which contrasts with her honeyed voice.
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Mar 29, 201188Her producer and co-songwriter Bjorn Yttling (of the Swedish rock band Peter, Bjorn and John) keeps things from sounding like mere revivalism.
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Mar 14, 201160The result is never maudlin, but big, bouncy and entertaining.
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Mar 14, 201180The sonically arresting album, which couches Li's girl-group aspirations in a sheen of industrial grime, creates tension when the lyrics call for it.
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Mar 11, 201170Wounded Rhymes, her follow-up on the same label, has thumping drums, Farfisa organs, girl-group vocal harmonies and darkly pealing guitars. It also has songs of desolate stoicism and disconsolate fury.
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Mar 7, 201170Broken hearts litter pop music of course, but the way this 24-year-old almost welcomes desolation into her life is nothing if not fascinating.
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Mar 4, 201185It's rare that an artist finds a voice in the unsaid. You could call her loss our gain.
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Mar 4, 201140While the minimal production and closely miked vocals on her debut emphasized the pop hooks and her fragile voice, Li and producer Bjorn Yttling (Peter, Bjorn & John) give listeners a more all-encompassing, if familiar, sound on Wounded Rhymes, nestling her vocals amidst girl-group harmonies, psych organ and shambolic percussion.
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Mar 4, 201176Wounded Rhymes' moments of true daring are few, but it's the first indication that Li's turning a critical eye on her own style-and that she's got a knack for reinvention.
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Mar 3, 201183Like Joss Whedon's show, Wounded Rhymes is an album of stark, scintillating contrasts: between fantasy and reality, between the powerful and the vulnerable, between the brash and the quiet, between the rhythmic and the melodic.
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Mar 1, 201190Lykke Li holds to her regal aesthetic and simple drum and bass lines doggedly; whether stripped down or ramped up she has a well crafted, appealingly consistent sound, and it's what she puts over this that completes it.
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Mar 1, 201180Wounded Rhymes offers a less atmospheric soundscape with more percussion alongside organs and frequent layered harmonies.
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Mar 1, 201178Tribal sounds loom large, kettle drums popping holes in the mix over deadpan synths and cozy blankets of noise.
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Mar 1, 201183At her core, this new snarling, burned Lykke Li is unfamiliar, perhaps even to herself, but it's to our benefit. We get to meet her all over again.
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Mar 1, 201188She's a mediocre singer with a very interesting voice, a fan of classic handmade pop and the ways laptops can serrate it, and a writer obsessed with sex and with sexing up obsession.
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Mar 1, 201180Despite that plethora of knowing musical allusions, this is by no means a stale, cut-and-dried retro affair.
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Mar 1, 201180Li's new album, Wounded Rhymes, is equal parts seething ice princess and lonely snowwoman, vacillating almost track by track between fury and despondence over a scotched relationship.
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Mar 1, 201180An outstanding album which improves upon the Swedish singer's great debut.
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Mar 1, 201180There's an earnestness and weight to the album that simultaneously gives it its focus, but also makes the listener yearn for some light amidst the bleak post-breakup laments.
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Mar 1, 201160Wounded Rhymes is an album that has not escaped unscathed from its wounds.
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Mar 1, 201190Wounded Rhymes has her belting her heart out over Yttling's maximalist arrangements to thrilling effect.
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Mar 1, 201180Lykke Li is a different kind of Swedish wunderkind: an ingenious oddball.
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Mar 1, 201180This is soul music, sometimes in form, but always in content; mournful and inspirational in equal measure, Wounded Rhymes more than earns that categorization.
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Feb 28, 201190Wounded Rhymes is filled with gorgeously spiteful moments such as these, adding an obstinate wrinkle to the album's already-rich, shadowy mystique.
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Feb 28, 201170The simple fact she's intent on change makes her and the rest of her career infinitely more intriguing.
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Feb 28, 201180Lykke Li seems to have made it work for her.
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Feb 25, 2011100While her 2008 breakout, Youth Novels, was quirky and coy, Wounded Rhymes is hungry, dark, dirty.
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May 2, 201180Wounded Rhymes is the moment Lykke Liu has edged ahead of the pack. And she still understands the value of a mighty percussive wallop. [Apr 2011, p.100]
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Apr 6, 201180Swedish chanteuse returns with guns blazing. [March 2011, p. 96]
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Mar 29, 201180Her quirky homespun arrangements have been toughened and broadened, adding a knowingly retro girl-group stomp and echo-drenched Spector-ish grandeur to windswept heartbreak anthems. [Apr 2011, p.85]
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Mar 9, 201160The problem comes when Lykke Li steps out of her range musically. [Feb. 2011, p. 65]
User score distribution:
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Positive: 10 out of 11
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Mixed: 0 out of 11
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Negative: 1 out of 11
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10Lykke Li is big and bold, soft and subdued, dancy and sleepy, all within one record. Itâ
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10