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Aug 15, 2018There's a distance in these songs. Keeping the audience at arm's length ensures that the album won't get bogged down in pain, even as it willingly swims in that pain. While that distance also results in a slightly ephemeral experience, the result is mood music that works as well as a breakup album as it does a warm-up for the club.
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Jul 5, 2018So Sad So Sexy is by no means a bad record, but while the Li of previous records was refreshing and stark showing us her vulnerability, the slickly produced nature of this means that’s often lost and in its place is cliché as Li tries to hang onto the weighty romance of youth.
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Jul 2, 2018Sadness may remain her true love, but when she flirts with other emotions, the effect can still be magical.
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Jun 18, 2018The consistency remains throughout the album, allowing her to both cover a lot of ground and tell a coherent story. So sad so sexy is another stellar record and Lykke Li's unique brand of Scandinavian pop feels as comforting and warm as ever here.
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Jun 14, 2018Lykke Li’s songwriting is strong here, but the excess of electronic manipulation sometimes resembles a bedroom experiment.
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Jun 13, 2018On so sad, her traumas are too often muted by abstraction and unspecificity. Li is clearly an artist of stormy passions—four albums in, she still seeks the flood of love before she reaches for the life preserver.
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Jun 12, 2018It’s not her best (nothing is quite like “Get Some”) but it’s a fresh change from an artist who gave us both subtle and surefire signs she might head in this direction.
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Jun 11, 2018While this might not be the most pivotal ‘sad pop’ record from someone who arguably coined the genre, it can stand toe-to-toe with the best of them and few albums have ever been as appropriately named as so sad so sexy.
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Jun 8, 2018A mind-boggling host of collaborators are along for the ride yet the album-- including Bhasker, Malay (Frank Ocean, Zayn), Rostam (Vampire Weekend), Emile Haynie (Lana Del Rey, Eminem, Bruno Mars), even Skrillex--and the vision never feel like they’re anyone’s but hers, and the title track, “Deep End,” “Sex Money Feelings Die” and especially “Last Piece” and “Utopia” are easily among the best songs she’s ever done.
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Jun 8, 2018Li's defeat and grief are palpable, yet she delivers with such grace and control, which offers a glimmer of hope for the fellow romantically downtrodden. With production to match, so sad so sexy succeeds in providing a relatable therapy session for love's final gasps.
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Jun 8, 2018This is clearly an album of personal and musical growth for Lykke Li--it’ll be interesting to see where she goes next.
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Jun 8, 2018On her fourth LP, So Sad So Sexy, she embraces slickly produced pop with open arms, and she's lost some of her character.
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Jun 8, 2018A sense of bittersweet happiness and streamlined sadness flows through its 10 tracks.
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Jun 8, 2018Lykke Li’s fourth album, So Sad So Sexy, is more introverted and meditative than her previous efforts.
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Jun 6, 2018So Sad So Sexy is a sleek, homogenous pop-oriented album that feels both conceptually half-formed and technically fussed-over.
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Jun 6, 2018This is how you really do summertime sadness.
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Jun 6, 2018Li’s latest foray in pop is a brilliant display of growth, both personally and professionally. She once again proves that there’s no such thing as boring in her music.
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Jun 6, 2018The album’s repeated motif of smoking and cigarettes as an addiction metaphor feels try-hard rather than smart. The best tracks are those that transpose the drama of Li’s best work to the album’s more explicitly pop context.
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Q MagazineJun 5, 2018A parade of intriguing timbres and textures ensures each song is as seductive as the last. [Summer 2018, p.113]
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Jun 5, 2018It's actually not a terrible record, really, but it's frustratingly complacent after two outstanding albums.
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Jun 5, 2018Although the trap-influenced style wears thin at times, so sad so sexy is a superb reinvention of Lykke Li.
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Jun 5, 2018If Li was a Pokémon collector So Sad So Sexy would have caught ‘em all, but alas--this is music; and the truth is Li should really leave the hip-hop influences too Janelle Monae and Lorde.
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Jun 5, 2018so sad so sexy is an unusual blend of pop and R&B inspiration, but it's not a memorable album. Lykke Li scratches the bare surface of the talent she possesses, making you wish there was just a little more ener
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 93 out of 108
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Mixed: 10 out of 108
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Negative: 5 out of 108
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Jun 8, 2018
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Jun 21, 2018
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Jun 8, 2018