It rained when Sweden.se met Lykke Li at the Roskilde Festival in Denmark. But the sun is otherwise shining on the young Swedish indie pop singer who recently signed a contract with Atlantic Records.
Lykke Li is yet another Swedish success story. Photo: Marguerite Seger/Luger.
The floppy hat keeps the light rain off Lykke Li as she dashes from a series of back-to-back interviews with Danish and international media to a session with Denmark’s leading music magazine Gaffa. The rave reviews about her brand of intelligent indie pop music have seen her career skyrocket.
Lykke Li, whose hair is done up in her trademark bun, is beginning to taste fame but she seems determined to keep a level head amid all the fuss. “I will just keep my eyes and ears open,” she says.
A dream come true
Lykke Li is about to springboard to the next level in her career and she’s busy. “It’s exciting, a new page in my life and a lot of dreams are coming true,” she says.
Although Lykke Li has her own record label, LL Recordings, one of those dreams was a contract with a major company. Her manager, Filip Wilén, says: “She signed directly with Atlantic Records’ UK president Max Lousada. It’s a worldwide licensing deal for outside Scandinavia.”
In other words, Lykke Li is hooked to a player with global reach and the apparatus for distribution, and it will do the same for her next album. Having your own label means lots of work, cutting deals with each and every country.
Lykke Li is used to spending time on the road. Photo: Luger.
Signing with a major label is certainly a big break, but Lykke Li plans to stay indie. “I don’t want to change or have someone tell me what to do. And I won’t let anybody into my creative space,” she says.
The proof is in the performance
There is only one big rain cloud over our heads and it’s totally surrounded by blue skies. But it always seems to rain at Roskilde, one of Europe’s longest-running outdoor music festivals, and it still draws about 70,000 fans every year.
In a few hours, with the sun setting in a cloudless sky, Lykke Li will give a performance that will confirm all the praise critics have awarded her debut album, Youth Novels, and live show. The fans – 10,000 maybe, though it’s hard to tell – love every second. Going on stage gives Lykke Li a chance to, well, go kind of crazy. “It’s a release for my soul,” she says.
Global contract – global appeal
If you are not one of the hundreds of thousands to have heard the album or watched Lykke Li on YouTube or MySpace, her music is peppy, smart and for many the soundtrack to the summer of 2008.
Born Li Lykke Timotej Zachrisson in 1986, her music and lyrics have hit a nerve with youngsters who she easily identifies with. “It’s a feeling of being lost,” she says. “You don’t think about tomorrow. Everything is urgent. You think you will never die, but if you get dumped by a lover you feel like you’re going to die. Everything is so dramatic, it’s all about you. Problems are so big when you’re young.”
On the road
Even though her manager wants her career to grow “organically,” as it has done, the contract with Atlantic is bound to give Lykke Li a boost. Youth Novels was released in Sweden in January, entering the charts at No.3. Thanks to her management promoting her in the UK and Scandinavia, and the airplay she has been getting on the internet, word has spread. More than 100,000 people watched the video for the single Little Bit on YouTube shortly after Moshi Moshi Records released the track on vinyl.
With her album now out in the UK and set for release in the US in August, and the rest of Europe, Australia and Japan in autumn, Lykke Li will be away from Sweden for quite a while, although that’s nothing new. Both her parents were musicians and the family traveled and lived in different parts of the world while she was growing up. Artistic parents probably gave Lykke Li her eclectic sources of inspiration – Edith Piaf, Prince, Nina Simone – while globetrotting apparently gave her a wisdom beyond her 22 years.
Lykke Li even speaks Portuguese after living in Portugal for five years. “A citizen of the world,” is how she describes herself, and that may be one reason for the cross-border appeal she radiates.
Part-time Swede
If there are any gaps in her hectic touring schedule, chances are Lykke Li will visit Sweden, although she says, “I don’t really feel Swedish in a Christmas, Midsummer, herring manner of speaking, and I never really did. My parents were sort of non-Swedish.” However, she does have a strong affection for “healthy foods” such as yogurt (filmjölk), crisp bread (knäckebröd) and Swedish meatballs (köttbullar).
In fact, Lykke is a Danish name meaning happiness and when linked with Li it sounds like the Danish word for “happy.” At this point in her life, the name fits perfectly.
Listen to Lykke Li
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Links
www.lykkeli.com — Lykke Li's official website
www.myspace.com/lykkeli — Lykke Li at MySpace
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Charles Ferro
Charles Ferro is a Copenhagen-based freelance writer and Denmark correspondent for the music magazine Billboard.
The author alone is responsible for the opinions expressed in this article.
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