This month I’ve chosen the new album from Lykke Li, The Afterparty. For the second consecutive month we’ve been gifted an album from an artist much loved on the pod, yet one who has somehow never had a full album featured on either the podcast or the blog. Lykke Li is an artist who continues to evolve, though for me her first three albums remain permanent fixtures in my musical world.
I’ve always found Lykke Li’s music deeply intriguing. Her songs are musically welcoming whilst emotionally devastating — pop music that invites you in before quietly breaking your heart. Her work has long felt centred around a love of love itself; even when the beats are huge, the emotional energy often feels fragile, wounded, or collapsing inward. Where many artists turn heartbreak into empowerment, Lykke Li tends to stay inside the ache — dreamy, self-destructive, romantic, numb, and haunted.
The title The Afterparty immediately filled me with anxiety. Afterparties, in my experience, are rarely parties at all. They’re strange, liminal spaces where the adrenaline, glamour, and euphoria have worn off, leaving anxiety, exhaustion, regret, loneliness, and existential dread. Everyone is quietly planning their exit.
That feeling makes this album title especially fitting. In recent interviews, Lykke Li has hinted that The Afterparty may be her final album after more than two decades in an industry she has repeatedly admitted doesn’t suit her. Her Scandinavian bluntness has often cut through the mythology of music industry glamour. One of my favourite quotes from her remains: “The profession I have keeps dragging me into drama and taking me away from baking, flowering and gardening.”
What makes The Afterparty so compelling is how it feels like the culmination of everything she has explored across her career — from the icy melancholy of her earlier work to the widescreen pop and club textures of later releases and remixes. At just nine songs and roughly twenty-five minutes long, it achieves more than many albums manage in twice the runtime. The soundscape feels simultaneously expansive and tightly controlled, whilst lyrically it moves through themes of love, ageing, alienation, fame, and emotional exhaustion. Glamorous yet emotionally wrecked feels like the perfect description.
From the opening pulse of “Not Gon Cry”, the album immediately establishes its emotional contradiction: euphoric music carrying deeply bruised emotions. Anchored by the lead single “Lucky Again”, the remaining eight tracks orbit with near perfection around her core sound. Throughout, the album bleeds broken positivity — shimmering with hope whilst soaked in melancholy.
The brief spoken line at the beginning of “Famous Last Words” — “I don’t trust anything. I’m going to a dark place, do you need anything?” — perfectly captures the fragility running through the record. It’s darkly funny, vulnerable, and quietly devastating.
If The Afterparty is a comedown, it is an exquisitely crafted one — elegant, emotionally rich, and full of musical joy despite the darkness at its centre. If this truly is Lykke Li’s final album, she has left us with one of the most accomplished works of her career.
Though the eternal fan in me still hopes this isn’t her swan song.
thisisnothappening.net 
What a beautifully-written piece brother Nolan.
Right, here we are. I’m 6 days out and struggling to get time to get my thoughts down in between job interview preparation and family tasks. Dadlife, eh?
Isn’t this quite the fascinating album pick? I know we deliberated about following Robyn with another Scandinavian pop songstress, but I think it’s a brilliant choice, as there’s so much to prise them apart here. On the face of it, a venn diagram with a chunky overlap, but squint at it, and there’s not much in common. That distance and the nuances of what makes it is the best bit.
Let’s go with a disclaimer or two next:
I didn’t think I knew really any Lykke before now. That’s not even half true. Having listened to this album many many times, I inevitably dived into the back catalogue. And boy did I know lots and loved all of it: Get Some (6 Music staple at the time, without even realising who it was), I Follow Rivers, which I’m pretty sure I played while DJing and didn’t know it was her (the shame). Sadness Is A Blessing, this sort of Mowtown-esque Scandi wall of Sound 60s pop monster. No Rest For The Wicked, Gunshot, Over. Yes, I know quite a few of her, and didn’t realise most of it was Li. Which perhaps leads me to my second point….
I massively misremembered/misconstrued what I thought Lykke Li is/was. Yes, she inhabits the weirder, wonkier environs of pop that we all love – especially Joey – but what I heard from the last month was far from the out-and-out oddness I expected. I wonder if I thought she was The Knife and vice versa, because that sounds a lot more like what I expected. What I get overall is bombastic pop music, tinged with 60s, these torch songs for the desolate, which really are a thing of wonder.
So…. to the Afterparty? Much like Robyn, the album’s brevity is a blessing. It whizzes by so pleasingly, without ever feeling quick. Even this morning I listened twice without even realising. There is so much to love about what we hear: from Not Gon Cry’s statement at the start, the chorus of voices, the piano and those really distinctive percussive elements, almost too high in the mix, but giving the feel of a more ramshackle, non-quantized throwback from the cleanliness of so much modern pop. Happy Now? Well, it’s epic, isn’t it? Lucky Again, bathed in beautiful orchestral swathes, so much more mainstream in sound, but all with the emotional bleakness at its core.
As you navigate the album, there’s wonderful moments of light at dark: the downtempo of Famous Last Words, emotion dripping from every line, Future Fear’s incredible Saya-Greyness (if I’d not known, I’d have thought it was her single), So Happy’s lush soundscapes, to Sick Of Love’s desolation. There’s a theme developing here…. Knife In The Heart, does it need an explanation? And the closer Euphoria which is so up close and personal, it sounds like Li’s singing this into your ear.
It is a beautiful album, so draped in sadness that if you stop and listen to the lyrics rather than letting it wash over you, you’d be forgiven for shedding a tear. When you finally understand the (potential) meaning and where Lykke is in her career now, it takes on an even bigger resonance.
So what are my feelings?
First off: regret. Regret I have totally missed this artist when I should’ve been on board, and as much as I have loved this album, I’ve missed out on that alchemy of a new album that to hear at the time, and all those ways it wends its way into your life and becomes part of your existence.
And secondly…. puzzlement. Because for all the skill, emotion, melody and power of this record, it still hasn’t totally won me over. First up, it was in the shadow of my love for Robyn, (and boy oh boy do i still love that!) but now it’s come out of that, but still hasn’t wormed its way into my heart in the same way.
But of course, there’s still time! And I’m going to enjoy giving it that final go.
First up, what a phenomenal write up, Nolan, one of your best. It really helped me focus on how to listen to the album.
Let’s start with the obvious – the songs on this are brilliant. Her songwriting ability is off the scale! I’d actually forgotten what a pop being she can be, and how naturally her sense of melody comes to her. It’s breathtaking at times. It all sounds effortless. It’s got great production and a real widescreen sound. Lucky Again is easily one of the best songs she’s ever written.
So, why, despite all that, have it has not entirely my skin. I’ve been struggling for ages to work it out, as I’ve been spinning it loads. And I actually think – for the first time ever on the pod, I think, I find myself sad that an album is too short. And I genuinely wonder if that might be why I find it stops short at times at delivering everything I want. It passes by in a technicolour flash of brilliance, but so often I find that Spotify has already started streaming ‘recommended’ other tracks, and it’s almost like I haven’t had time to locate myself in the record.
As we’ve discussed many times, albums are a kind of manifesto, a statement of some kind by the artist. You can hear her hope and her sadness in this record, and also a kind of full stop at coming to the end of a particular journey. But I find myself wanting more. Perhaps, paradoxically, it’s a testament to how good the songwriting is. The journey is a very enjoyable ride – but I wonder it could have gone a little bit further.
Anyway, I’m REALLY looking forward to discussing this, as I suspect it’ll help enrich my listening experience. I’m not yet done with working out what I feel with this record.