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While at first it’s tempting to bracket youthful Stockholm pop starlet Lykke Li and her fine debut album Youth Novels in with Annie and Robyn and all those other blog-friendly Scandinavian pop songstresses, in all truthfulness it’s not a comparison that quite works. While those artists take a quite glossy, polished approach to pop artistry, Youth Novels sometimes feels quite makeshift in its design: an experimental record, albeit one that attempts to make sweet, addictive songs from unusual or unconventional elements. At first, you worry that her voice is too slight: on "Dance Dance Dance" she sounds childlike, backed by little but looped percussion and thrumming bass –- but the song gradually, majestically finds its feet, as first a madly soloing saxophone and then a full choir spirits in to her aid. And as it turns out, Lykke Li is actually a pretty tough cookie. "Little Bit" is superb confessional pop, a wispy lament over the lover that values you less than you value them, while "Complaint Department" is a wonderfully stern electro rattle built from fuzzy bass and tense drums, and a fabulously terse delivery: "If you want to complain/We are not the complaints department". Not that you will, of course: Youth Novels is a touching, intelligent debut, well worthy of attention.
Condition:NEW. Brand New Factory Sealed
TRACK LISTINGS
1. Melodies & Desires
2. Dance, Dance, Dance
3. I'm Good, I'm Gone
4. Let It Fall
5. My Love
6. Tonight
7. Little Bit
8. Hanging High
9. This Trumpet in My Head
10. Complaint Department
11. Breaking It Up
12. Everybody But Me
13. Time Flies
14. Window Blues
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