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.
Welcome to Episode 68 of This Is Not Happening, an Album of the Month podcast. In Part 1, we do a deep drive review of our Album of the Month. This month Guy brings a Robyn's latest release 'Sexisitential'. In Part 2, we play Spin It or Bin It, we pick a theme and all pick songs that represent that theme. This month, the theme is 'Sad Bangers'. —— Part 1 | Album of the Month | Robyn | Sexistential ——Robyn is a unique, iconic figure in contemporary music. She's been making and releasing music since 1995, her career spans 4 decades already and she shows no signs of slowing down. Her pop career started when she was 15, she's about to celebrate her 47th birthday, this is insane staying power!Sexistential is her 9th studio album if you count the Body Talk series as full albums? It's only 29 mins long, it doesn't mess about and no track or the album in full overstays it's welcome. There is lots to get into in the discussion, has she still got it? Is she doing new things? Is this still relevant and if so who for? How artists change and what we expect from them as they age?Have a listen, tell us what you think.Listen to the original album here.Watch some of her videos here , particularly the singles from this album.Buy this album or some merch here. And listen to her talk about the album here. —————- Part 2 | Spin It or Bin It | Sad Bangers —————- Robyn's biggest track is 'Dancing On My Own' is the archetype of a genre that Guy made up 'Sad Bangers'. This is our theme for Spin It or Bin It this month. It's got to be sad, and it's got to bang. Simple (in theory).The task is pick a track that fits the theme, the objective, get more 'spins' than your friends. We each pick four tracks for a 16 track play list . We then each pick select 1 track and ask the simple question 'Spin It Or Bin It'?David chose Destroy Everything You Touch by Ladytron.Joey chose 'Teardrops' by Womack and Womack.Guy chose 'Lovesick' by Friendly Fires.Nolan chose 'Blue Monday' by New Order.What would you have chosen? What's missing from our playlist?We've been writing the blog for years come and have a look – https://thisisnothappening.net/
Welcome to Episode 68 of This Is Not Happening, an Album of the Month podcast.
In Part 1, we do a deep drive review of our Album of the Month. This month Guy brings a Robyn’s latest release ‘Sexisitential’.
In Part 2, we play Spin It or Bin It, we pick a theme and all pick songs that represent that theme. This month, the theme is ‘Sad Bangers’.
—— Part 1 | Album of the Month | Robyn | Sexistential ——
Robyn is a unique, iconic figure in contemporary music. She’s been making and releasing music since 1995, her career spans 4 decades already and she shows no signs of slowing down. Her pop career started when she was 15, she’s about to celebrate her 47th birthday, this is insane staying power!
Sexistential is her 9th studio album if you count the Body Talk series as full albums? It’s only 29 mins long, it doesn’t mess about and no track or the album in full overstays it’s welcome.
There is lots to get into in the discussion, has she still got it? Is she doing new things? Is this still relevant and if so who for? How artists change and what we expect from them as they age?
Watch some of her videos here , particularly the singles from this album.
Buy this album or some merch here. And listen to her talk about the album here.
—————- Part 2 | Spin It or Bin It | Sad Bangers —————-
Robyn’s biggest track is ‘Dancing On My Own’is the archetype of a genre that Guy made up ‘Sad Bangers’. This is our theme for Spin It or Bin It this month. It’s got to be sad, and it’s got to bang. Simple (in theory).
The task is pick a track that fits the theme, the objective, get more ‘spins’ than your friends. We each pick four tracks for a16 track play list. We then each pick select 1 track and ask the simple question ‘Spin It Or Bin It’?
November 2025. We were busy compiling our final iterations of the end of year albums and tracks, luxuriating in the eleven months of fantastic releases and looking forward to what 2026 would bring, and a new single dropped from the sky. Right into the middle of everything.
“I know it’s just dopamine [DOH-DOH-DOH-DOH] / But if feels to real to me [DOH-DOH-DOH-DOH]”.
That voice was so familiar. The lush synths. The euphoria. With her first solo single since 2019, and Robyn was BACK.
Robyn’s been part of my pop culture landscape since way back in 1997 (a ridiculously long time ago, for a pop artist… I was one year out of university!) when she appeared on the Backstreet Boys/Britney-adjacent Show Me Love, an early Max Martin piece that didn’t exactly point to either of their futures directly, but certainly stuck in my head. In terms of semi-informed potted histories, she’d been recording in her home country of Sweden since she was 12, and by the time I next encountered her, in the still banging ‘With Every Heartbeat‘ – a single from her fourth (!) album – she’d already been somewhat chewed up by the pop machine. Having moved from giant BMG to Jive, then exited that deal to find artistic freedom, and formed her own label, the aptly-named Konichiwa Records. This is where she’d release the self-titled album from which her first UK No.1 single would appear, as ‘With Every Hearbeat’, the track she made with Kleerup tacked onto the reissued UK version. At 28, she’d already lived whole careers in that decade since Show Me Love, but found her feet.
After that, she didn’t look back. There has never the superstardom had by others around her before and since – think Britney, Christina, or Adele, Gaga, Katy, Lorde, and now Taylor, or Charli – but she certainly has her own niche to exist in: synth-driven pop music powered by loss and heartbreak. Sound a bit vague? Perhaps it’s Dancing On My Own that defined her more than anything, and stamped the genre she made her own: The Sad Banger.
I’m in the corner Watchin’ you kiss her, oh I’m right over here Why can’t you see me? Oh I’m giving it my all But I’m not the girl you’re takin’ home, ooh I keep dancing on my own I keep dancing on my own
Sure, we’ve all heard lyrics like this, but they were over a ballad, or piano, or various flavours of pop melodies. But this… this was over pumping dancefloor percussion and synths. This was a backing track you’d usually hear without vocals or as the celebratory ‘I’ve won her/his heart’ lyrics. Robyn flipped the script, and leaned into the desolation, but you couldn’t help dance to it. As Robyn said herself, the song “represents the precise moment on the dancefloor when you have to get your desperation, frustration and sadness out”. And I’ve been dancing to it ever since.
It’s oversimplifying Robyn’s long and interesting career, full of reinvention and making music how she wants to, an open book often baring the private, uncomfortable, moving away from the cliche (her previous album, Honey revolved around the loss of her friend and sometime collaborator, Christian Falk). This corner of dancefloor pop music is something she’s created, working with a trusted set of producers and engineers who understand her world, and something that’s been redone by others ever since. And that is the mark of something truly creative. I may not be a Robyn stan (that’s my friend Marco, who still plays that track in DJ sets, and queued up to meet her recently in Manchester), but I’ve loved so much of what she’s done, without ever quite dropping into fanboy territory. Until now.
I adored Dopamine. While I’ve really loved Robyn’s music over the years, this seemed to hit hard. I’ve always liked music that leans into the spirit of the dancefloor unashamedly, given I’ve spent so much of my adult life on and around them, and this transplanted itself into so much of what I felt when I think back to the best times I’ve spent on them, in London, or Manchester, Ibiza, Leeds, or Croatia. Not just her vocals, but the effects that turn them into this warm chorus that wraps the track in this fuzzy haze. The lyrics, which smartly layer the real euphoria of joy, of being in the moment, with a nod to the modern affliction of that online hit, that reply, the like, and how we are so accustomed to micro-highs that tie us to the online world. All wrapped up in three and a half minutes of pumping action. Just as All My Friends does, or Layo and Bushwacka’s Love Story, or The Human League’s Don’t You Want Me Baby? the moment this cranks up, I know exactly where my head is at. Feed it into my veins!
I heard an album was coming soon, and before Sexistential dropped in late March, we got 3 more tasters in what would turn out to be nearly half the album. Talk To Me’s single entendres (“I’m coming fast so guide me in”) over a Max Martin-amped chorus, shedding any societal preconceptions over what a 46-year-old woman should or should not talk about. The title track – and probably one of the album’s marmit-est moments, riffs on her single-mum IVF journey in lockdown, simultaneously horny, lonely, exasperated and laughing at her own situation. Because who else would do a rap about ovaries over a nervous, sparse percussion track and warping bass?
What Sexistential gives us is a fantastically conceived, pocket rocket of a modern pop album – twenty nine minutes and not a single second wasted – that can loop through over and over again before you know it, pulling you in all sorts of emotional directions. It’s the backdrop for the ‘what has she been up to?’ story from a fierce and yet open and searingly honest pop star who has sailed into her 40s and decided the best thing to do is play to her strengths, 8 years on from her last record. What you get on this ninth studio album are some right-up-there-with-the-best moments of pop – It Don’t Mean A Thing’s straight-up wistful remembering of the potential of a relationship no more, to the hopefulness of Light Up, and the closing (and best track on the album, to me) Into The Sun, with Robyn refusing to give up on love, being willing to burn up, just to give it a shot. As much as there’s humour, disclosure and sex on here, the album is as much about the reward of love – lost and yet to be found – as much as anything. And that feeling is something we all need in a fractured, chaotic world.
Music, is, after all, about connection. And for whatever reason that Robyn’s previous albums never quite hit my soul, this one has. Musically, it throbs. But more than that, I listen to each song – even Sexistential – and find something there that talks to me. That gets me right in the solar plexus. I’m 5 years older than Robyn, and a parent, so there’s a definite emotional tug within the songs too (Exihibit C: the cleverly remade Blow My Mind, which swaps the original’s love song for new motherhood), and that is a feeling you can’t control, can’t map or can’t force. It’s either there or it isn’t.
There will be bigger albums. Taylor’s 20 special edition formats chewing up vinyl plants, or Olivia Rodrigo’s upcoming album. Or perhaps one we don’t even know is coming, like Brat’s follow-up. But as they each do their thing, this album has Robyn’s vibrancy running through it like a name in a stick of rock. And it’ll be in my top 10 in November, just in time to hear the first single of one of 2027’s favourites.
Welcome to Episode 68 of This Is Not Happening, an Album of the Month podcast. In Part 1, we do a deep drive review of our Album of the Month. This month Guy brings a Robyn's latest release 'Sexisitential'. In Part 2, we play Spin It or Bin It, we pick a theme and all pick songs that represent that theme. This month, the theme is 'Sad Bangers'. —— Part 1 | Album of the Month | Robyn | Sexistential ——Robyn is a unique, iconic figure in contemporary music. She's been making and releasing music since 1995, her career spans 4 decades already and she shows no signs of slowing down. Her pop career started when she was 15, she's about to celebrate her 47th birthday, this is insane staying power!Sexistential is her 9th studio album if you count the Body Talk series as full albums? It's only 29 mins long, it doesn't mess about and no track or the album in full overstays it's welcome. There is lots to get into in the discussion, has she still got it? Is she doing new things? Is this still relevant and if so who for? How artists change and what we expect from them as they age?Have a listen, tell us what you think.Listen to the original album here.Watch some of her videos here , particularly the singles from this album.Buy this album or some merch here. And listen to her talk about the album here. —————- Part 2 | Spin It or Bin It | Sad Bangers —————- Robyn's biggest track is 'Dancing On My Own' is the archetype of a genre that Guy made up 'Sad Bangers'. This is our theme for Spin It or Bin It this month. It's got to be sad, and it's got to bang. Simple (in theory).The task is pick a track that fits the theme, the objective, get more 'spins' than your friends. We each pick four tracks for a 16 track play list . We then each pick select 1 track and ask the simple question 'Spin It Or Bin It'?David chose Destroy Everything You Touch by Ladytron.Joey chose 'Teardrops' by Womack and Womack.Guy chose 'Lovesick' by Friendly Fires.Nolan chose 'Blue Monday' by New Order.What would you have chosen? What's missing from our playlist?We've been writing the blog for years come and have a look – https://thisisnothappening.net/
Welcome to Episode 67 of This Is Not Happening. An Album of the Month podcast.
In Part 1, we do a deep drive review of our Album of the Month. This month Joey brings a slice of sophisticated, R&B tinged pop with Eliza’s Jill latest album ‘The Darkening Green’.
In Part 2, we play Spin It or Bin It, we pick a theme and all pick songs that represent that theme. This month the theme is ‘Sophisticated Pop’.
——Part 1 | Album of the Month | Eliza | The Darkening Green ——
Eliza is an enigma. She has recorded under a different name but has been recording under ‘Eliza’ for the past 10 years or so.
After 3 long, very complex albums on the pod we take a new direction, 9 tracks and 35 minutes of sophisticated pop, stylish soul driven vibes. Its full of grooves, it’s full of tunes and its full of all of the emotions. I have become quite obsessed with this and am recommending it to everyone.
—————-Part 2 | Spin It or Bin It | New Music—————-
The theme is Sophisticaed Pop … but we also get a bit confused between this and ‘sophisti-pop’ and to be honest, Nolan loses his shit.
The task is pick a track that fits the theme, the objective, get more ‘spins’ than your friends. We each pick four tracks for a16 track play list. We then each pick select 1 track and ask the simple question ‘Spin It Or Bin It’?
I nearly chose Rosalia’s Motomami as album of the month back in 2022. I think I correctly determined that the rest of the pod would hate it. It was chaotic, digital, and brilliantly abrasive. But it also leant very heavily into Reggaeton that I knew would wind at least 2 of the brothers up. That album won 4 Latin Grammy awards as well as the Grammy for best Latin Alternative album. Where do you go after that?
Apparently, you go towards the light (‘Lux’ is latin for light and clearly references luxury too).
This month’s choice is LUX, the fourth studio album from Rosalia, and it’s a lot. If MOTOMAMI was an album following an adrenaline-fueled night out in a neon-drenched city, LUX is the spiritual, orchestral comedown at dawn. It’s a MASSIVE, operatic, orchestral, experimental, entrancing, exciting, overwhelming experience, presented in 4 movements like a classical symphony.
Concepts and Themes.
At its core, LUX is a deep dive into the history of female mysticism. Rosalía has traded the streetwear imagery of Motomami for the iconography of female saints and spiritual pioneers. The album explores the idea of transformation she uses the stories of medieval mystics and uses these historical figures as mirrors for her own experience with fame and womanhood. This record is obsessed with transcendence, reaching for a state of peace or grace beyond the noise of the modern world.
Architecture of Lux’s Sound.
Rosalía is firmly in the driver’s seat as executive producer (handling ‘97%’ of the production herself … not sure how you determine a single % of production input but I’m here all day for random stats). However, the sonic world of LUX was built alongside a carefully selected team of collaborators.
Noah Goldstein: Rosalía’s long-term collaborator and the man who helped engineer the maximalist textures of Kanye West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and the sparse brilliance of Frank Ocean’s Blonde. He knows exactly how to handle her more experimental impulses, having been a key architect on MOTOMAMI and Travis Scott’s Utopia.
Dylan Wiggins: Bringing the rich, multi-instrumental depth that anchors the album’s four movements. You’ve heard his touch on SZA’s SOS, The Weeknd’s Starboy, and Daniel Caesar’s Never Enough. He provides the soulful, organic counterpoint to the album’s grander symphonic moments.
David Rodríguez: Her right-hand man for vocal production. He’s the reason every one of those 13 languages she sings in hits with total precision. Beyond his work on the MOTOMAMI era, David (often known as Godriguez) has a deep history in global sounds, famously producing Sampa the Great’s breakthrough The Great Mixtape.
It’s also worth noting the absence of El Guincho, Rosalia’s long time creative partner, which reminds me of Little Simz’ recent creative journey? Notable is the inclusion of Caroline Shaw (the Pulitzer-winning composer who has worked with everyone from Kanye to the Attacca Quartet) and conductor Daníel Bjarnason. These are two heavyweight collaborators that represent and add to the scale of this work.
First Impressions.
I’ve only been living with this for a few weeks and my notes are a bit of a mess. I am finsding that I don’t often have the words to describe what I am hearing or feeling.
“Porcelana”: Inspired by the Japanese monk Ryōnen Gensō, who famously scarred her own face to pursue her spiritual path. It’s a haunting track where Rosalía sings partly in Japanese over a backdrop of Bernard Herrmann-esque string stabs and heavy flamenco claps.
“La Perla”: This one is going to spark a lot of debate on the pod. Musically, it’s a light, airy waltz with a dramatic swell of brass—but the lyrics are an absolute evisceration of a “world-class fuck up” ex-lover. It’s “the anti-ballad,” hiding venom inside a gorgeous, shimmering shell.
“La Yugular”: Drawing on the Sufi mysticism of Rabia Al-Adawiyya, this track explores the proximity of the divine. It features a surreal nesting-doll lyric about an army fitting in a golf ball, ending with a spoken-word fragment from Patti Smith.
“Berghain”: (Featuring Björk and Yves Tumor) is a total head-fuck in the best way possible—a club track that feels like it’s being performed in a cathedral.
The Anti-Dopamine Manifesto.
Crucially, Rosalía has been very vocal about how she wants us to consume this record. In a direct response to the “commoditisation of the hook”—where 15-second snippets are engineered specifically for social media virality — she has described LUX as an anti-dopamine hit.
She isn’t interested in making background music for your morning commute or soundtracking a scroll through your feed. Her advice? Sit in a darkened room with the lyrics and their translations in front of you. This is not “easy listening,” and it wasn’t intended to be. It’s an album that demands total, undistracted attention. It’s a challenge to the modern listener to slow down and sit with the discomfort of silence and the weight of an orchestra.
Whether she’s successfully fought back against the TikTok-ification of music or simply created something beautifully inaccessible is exactly what we’re going to get into in the podcast.
thisisnothappening.net 