{"id":1919124,"date":"2026-05-05T08:00:45","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T05:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1919124"},"modified":"2026-05-05T08:00:45","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T05:00:45","slug":"on-the-afterparty-lykke-li-is-sticking-two-fingers-up-to-traditional-pop-trajectories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1919124","title":{"rendered":"On \u2018The Afterparty\u2019, Lykke Li is sticking two fingers up to traditional pop trajectories"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[analyse_image type=&#8221;featured&#8221; src=&#8221;https:\/\/www.nme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/lykke-li-afterparty-interview-chloe-le-drezen.jpeg&#8221;]<\/p>\n<article id=\"template-id-2947849\" class=\"post-2947849 tdb_templates type-tdb_templates status-publish post\">\n<div id=\"tdi_65\" class=\"tdc-zone\">\n<div class=\"tdc_zone tdi_66  wpb_row td-pb-row\">\n<div id=\"tdi_67\" class=\"tdc-row stretch_row\">\n<div class=\"vc_row tdi_68  wpb_row td-pb-row\">\n<div class=\"vc_column tdi_70  wpb_column vc_column_container tdc-column td-pb-span12\">\n<div class=\"wpb_wrapper\">\n<div class=\"td_block_wrap tdb_breadcrumbs tdi_71 td-pb-border-top td_block_template_2 tdb-breadcrumbs \" data-td-block-uid=\"tdi_71\">\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><span>Features<\/span><span>Music Interviews<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"td_block_wrap tdb_title tdi_72 tdb-single-title td-pb-border-top td_block_template_2\" data-td-block-uid=\"tdi_72\">\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<h1 class=\"tdb-title-text\">On \u2018The Afterparty\u2019, Lykke Li is sticking two fingers up to traditional pop trajectories<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"td_block_wrap tdb_single_subtitle tdi_73 td-pb-border-top td_block_template_2\" data-td-block-uid=\"tdi_73\">\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<p>Having recently turned 40, the Swedish star is celebrating with an iconoclastic new outlook that writes its own rulebook on &#8216;The Afterparty&#8217;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"td_block_wrap tdb_single_author tdi_75 td-pb-border-top td_block_template_2 tdb-post-meta\" data-td-block-uid=\"tdi_75\">\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<div class=\"tdb-author-name-wrap\"><span class=\"tdb-author-by\">By<\/span> Lisa Wright<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"td_block_wrap tdb_single_date tdi_76 td-pb-border-top td_block_template_2 tdb-post-meta\" data-td-block-uid=\"tdi_76\">\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><time class=\"entry-date updated td-module-date\" datetime=\"2026-05-05T09:00:45+01:00\">5th May 2026<\/time><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"tdi_77\" class=\"tdc-row stretch_row_1400 td-stretch-content\">\n<div class=\"vc_row tdi_78  wpb_row td-pb-row\">\n<div class=\"vc_column tdi_80  wpb_column vc_column_container tdc-column td-pb-span12\">\n<div class=\"wpb_wrapper\">\n<div class=\"td_block_wrap tdb_single_featured_image tdi_81 tdb-content-horiz-left td-pb-border-top td_block_template_2\" data-td-block-uid=\"tdi_81\">\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"696\" height=\"438\" class=\"entry-thumb\" src=\"https:\/\/www.nme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/lykke-li-afterparty-interview-chloe-le-drezen-696x438.jpeg\" alt=\"Lykke Li\" title=\"lykke-li-afterparty-interview-chloe-le-drezen\"><figcaption class=\"tdb-caption-text\">Lykke Li credit: Chlo\u00e9 Le Drezen<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"tdi_82\" class=\"tdc-row\">\n<div class=\"vc_row tdi_83  wpb_row td-pb-row\">\n<div class=\"vc_column tdi_85  wpb_column vc_column_container tdc-column td-pb-span12\">\n<div class=\"wpb_wrapper\">\n<div class=\"td_block_wrap tdb_single_content tdi_86 td-pb-border-top td_block_template_2 td-post-content tagdiv-type\" data-td-block-uid=\"tdi_86\">\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<p><strong class=\"dropcap\">I<\/strong>n the modern parlance of pop, it\u2019s no unusual thing to introduce a new album with the rhetoric of a new era. But it says a lot about Lykke Li \u2013 an artist who\u2019s always seemed more comfortable on the fringes of the mainstream than at its centre; whose sweeping heartache anthems have seen her collaborate with Mark Ronson but also David Lynch \u2013 that even this common trope comes with a poetic, unlikely edge.<\/p>\n<p>The Swedish singer\u2019s sixth (and, reportedly, final) LP \u2018The Afterparty\u2019, she explains to <em>NME<\/em> from her hotel in Paris, where she\u2019s out on promo duties, sees Li entering her \u201cGod era\u201d. Don\u2019t worry: she\u2019s not developed a messiah complex. Instead, following a career that\u2019s seen her trawl the depths of love in all its complex forms, from 2008 debut \u2018Youth Novels\u2019 to its celebrated follow-up \u2018Wounded Rhymes\u2019 and beyond, Li has spent the last few years looking to something \u201cmore existential, more bird\u2019s eye\u201d. \u201cI feel like all great artists \u2013 Bob Dylan, John Lennon, George Harrison \u2013 get to it eventually, where you\u2019re just starting to question the meaning of things,\u201d she suggests. \u201cWhat are the choices we\u2019re going to make? Is there a God? Who am I talking to?\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"td-a-ad id_inline_ad0 id_ad_content-horiz-center\"><span class=\"td-adspot-title\">Advertisement<\/span><\/div>\n<p>\u2018The Afterparty\u2019 attempts to answer these questions via a succinct, 25-minute journey through the hazy dregs of a night out: an analogy for a lawless, ungovernable time in society that feels like \u201cthere isn\u2019t a thought or a plan for tomorrow\u201d. Musically, it\u2019s Li\u2019s most transcendent album in years, from the huge, soaring chorus of \u2018Happy Now\u2019 to the string-laced, strangely joyful melancholia of \u2018Lucky Again\u2019 \u2013 the latter recalling her aforementioned Ronson team-up \u2018Late Night Feelings\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>Lyrically, meanwhile, it is full of knotty interrogations of who to trust and how to exist. Across the record, Li talks of \u201c<em>spit<\/em>\u201d and \u201c<em>knives<\/em>\u201d; she calls herself a \u201c<em>fool<\/em>\u201d and a \u201c<em>fucking clown<\/em>\u201d. \u201cThey\u2019ve done studies on how, if you\u2019re able to name a feeling, then your nervous system will regulate,\u201d she notes. \u201cI mean, we all want to feel seen and understood, so when I\u2019m able to use those words for what I\u2019m feeling, then it all makes sense all of a sudden.\u201d<\/p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Lykke Li - Sick Of Love\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/oExw95vBuYo?feature=oembed&amp;enablejsapi=1\" frameborder allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<p>There\u2019s a defiance and an unwillingness to play pretty within all elements of \u2018The Afterparty\u2019 that feels exhilarating. Its cover features the singer sheathed, alien-like, in a pair of sheer tights with smiley faces drawn over her eyes. It\u2019s an image that\u2019s more performance art than pop star \u2013 a shift in presentation that, having just turned 40, Li has been considering the deeper meaning of.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s so much knowledge about how to be young in all the novels, the music, the movies. We have the manual. And then, all of a sudden, you\u2019re 40, and it\u2019s quite uncharted territory,\u201d she says. \u201cYou look at people like Marina Abramovich or Tracey Emin \u2013 there are a few people that continue to be completely themselves and fearless. But if you tune in on a frequency level, there\u2019s sheer panic and fear [about women getting older]. And that, to me, is quite scary. I want the crone perspective to teach me. I want advice from my female elders, because there has to be something beyond that?\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"td-a-ad id_inline_ad1 id_ad_content-horiz-center\">\n<h5 class=\"taboola-mid-article-title\">Recommended<\/h5>\n<\/div>\n<p><strong class=\"dropcap\">I<\/strong>f Li is writing her own rulebook of how to enter your fifth decade while remaining a vital, vibrant pop mainstay, then lesson one is to go all in. While creating \u2018The Afterparty\u2019, she decided to shake off any labels that the outside world might want to put on her and become something else entirely.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs a woman, you\u2019re judged continuously from the first time people see you, and it\u2019s such a confined place,\u201d she reasons. \u201cSo when I was writing this album, I was really like, \u2018I\u2019m going to be a rock god. I\u2019m a fuckboy\u2019. I\u2019m channelling all the British rock gods through time: Mick Jagger, Primal Scream, Oasis, Mike Skinner, Ozzy Osbourne. I\u2019m joining the club.\u201d She pauses, mischievously: \u201cI just wanted to roam free in the night with my big dick out.\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cI want the crone perspective to teach me. I want advice from my female elders\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Alongside embodying her dick-swinging new alter-ego, however, Li had also taken on a simultaneous new identity as a mother of two (her second child was born in 2023). \u201cWhen I was making the album, at times I was like, \u2018What the hell am I doing?!\u2019\u201d she laughs. \u201cIt\u2019s crazy [to channel this] and then come home and have a tiny baby to take care of.\u201d In a previous interview with <em>Vogue<\/em>, she was quoted as saying that she found motherhood and making art \u201cvery incompatible\u201d, but she clarifies it\u2019s not the actual creation that\u2019s the issue, but the way that the music industry treats working artists who are also mothers. \u201cYou realise that it really is a man\u2019s world. If you didn\u2019t know that before, you definitely know that now,\u201d she says wryly.<\/p>\n<p>Change, she suggests, comes from just \u201ckeeping fighting\u201d. \u201cI guess we women have to somehow come together and be like, \u2018Fuck off to all that\u2019,\u201d she shrugs. But having crafted a record of buoyant existentialism after nearly two decades spent expertly marrying life\u2019s beauty and heartbreak, Li has always been an artist able to channel her dualities. \u201cI feel like there\u2019s always a side of me that has these two very opposite forces. It\u2019s always hope and despair. You\u2019re lying face flat on the ground, but you\u2019re also staring up into the blue sky. It\u2019s concrete and heaven at the same time,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n<div class=\"td-a-ad id_inline_ad2 id_ad_content-horiz-center\"><span class=\"td-adspot-title\">Advertisement<\/span><\/div>\n<p>Even the nocturnal world of \u2018The Afterparty\u2019 is one born of contradictions. Last night, she notes, she \u201cdid not sleep for one second\u201d. Her own after-hours tend towards one of two extremes. \u201cIn my home life, I live like a monk, and I\u2019m in a cocoon. But then, when I leave the nest, it gets unhinged pretty fast,\u201d she chuckles. \u201cWhen I did the listening party in LA, I took up drinking that night and had to climb through a window to get home. So it can be like that. I\u2019m creation and destruction at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a proclamation that fits with the singer\u2019s perhaps unexpected love of <em>WrestleMania<\/em>. Watching the \u201cinsanely over the top storylines about betrayal, revenge, all of that\u201d, Li was struck with a revelation. \u201cI\u2019m like, \u2018Oh wow, this is me. This is my life. This is the pop industry that I\u2019m watching\u2019,\u201d she says. \u201cYou see the blood, sweat and tears in these people too, and how much physical damage [they take]. It\u2019s so moving to me \u2013 the sacrifice, the physicality, and then you just get beaten the shit out of. As a female artist, this is what it feels like. It\u2019s ruthless.\u201d It seems not inconsequential that in wrestling, the outcome of who is destined to win or lose \u2013 no matter their efforts \u2013 is also one scripted by an unseen higher power.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_3943480\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3943480\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-3943480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.nme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Lykke-Li-MAIN-PRESS-PHOTO-photo-cred_-Chloe-Le-Drezen.jpeg\" alt=\"Lykke Li\" width=\"2000\" height=\"2860\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-3943480\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lykke Li credit: Chlo\u00e9 Le Drezen<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Yet Li is firmly resisting any predictable narrative. She recently debuted her new stage show at Coachella for the first time \u2013 a set that sees her grappling with a very physical, \u201cpunk\u201d new style of performance \u2013 and is clearly finding the challenge both fulfilling and exhausting. \u201cI love [playing live] in the moment, but I wish that we could do it in my bed, you know? Like, I wish we could all just lie in bed,\u201d she sighs.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps she could follow her performance art heroes and bring the audience to her bedroom? \u201cWell, I\u2019m friends with Lena Dunham, and there is a whole history of bedridden female artists. It\u2019s quite interesting,\u201d she muses. \u201cThere\u2019s a line at the beginning [of Dunham\u2019s recent memoir Famesick] where she\u2019s like, \u2018This industry doesn\u2019t allow for health, sleep, family. You have to just put everything on the line to feed this beast, and then it doesn\u2019t really matter how famous you get or how much money you make, it will still spit you out and chew you up.\u2019 I related to it so much.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s moments like these when you can understand entirely why Lykke Li might want to put a certain phase of her career to bed. She\u2019ll never give up music (\u201cI can\u2019t because that\u2019s what I love most in the whole world,\u201d she reasons), but she\u2019s trying to work out what the next stage might look like. Typically for the Scandinavian iconoclast, by the end of our conversation, she\u2019s already begun to question whether a lack of roadmap is a sign that LP7 is actually the place she should be exploring after all. \u201cPop music is about sex, money and youth. So then what happens after that \u2013 is there anywhere to go?\u201d she considers. \u201cMaybe then that\u2019s exactly what I should be doing. Creativity itself will never close the door on me. So is there a second act?\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Lykke Li\u2019s \u2018The Afterparty\u2019 is out on May 8 via Neon Gold Records.\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"td_block_wrap tdb_single_tags tdi_87 td-pb-border-top td_block_template_2\" data-td-block-uid=\"tdi_87\">\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<ul class=\"tdb-tags\">\n<li><span>Related Topics<\/span><\/li>\n<li>Lykke Li<\/li>\n<li>Pop<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"tdi_88\" class=\"tdc-row stretch_row_content td-stretch-content\">\n<div class=\"vc_row tdi_89  wpb_row td-pb-row tdc-element-style\">\n<div class=\"vc_column tdi_91  wpb_column vc_column_container tdc-column td-pb-span12\">\n<div class=\"wpb_wrapper\">\n<div class=\"td-block td-a-rec td-a-rec-id-custom-spot tdi_92 td_block_template_2\"><span class=\"td-adspot-title\">Advertisement<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"tdi_93\" class=\"tdc-row\">\n<div 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class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<p><strong class=\"dropcap\">I<\/strong>n the modern parlance of pop, it\u2019s no unusual thing to introduce a new album with the rhetoric of a new era. But it says a lot about Lykke Li \u2013 an artist who\u2019s always seemed more comfortable on the fringes of the mainstream than at its centre; whose sweeping heartache anthems have seen her collaborate with Mark Ronson but also David Lynch \u2013 that even this common trope comes with a poetic, unlikely edge.<\/p>\n<p>The Swedish singer\u2019s sixth (and, reportedly, final) LP \u2018The Afterparty\u2019, she explains to <em>NME<\/em> from her hotel in Paris, where she\u2019s out on promo duties, sees Li entering her \u201cGod era\u201d. Don\u2019t worry: she\u2019s not developed a messiah complex. Instead, following a career that\u2019s seen her trawl the depths of love in all its complex forms, from 2008 debut \u2018Youth Novels\u2019 to its celebrated follow-up \u2018Wounded Rhymes\u2019 and beyond, Li has spent the last few years looking to something \u201cmore existential, more bird\u2019s eye\u201d. \u201cI feel like all great artists \u2013 Bob Dylan, John Lennon, George Harrison \u2013 get to it eventually, where you\u2019re just starting to question the meaning of things,\u201d she suggests. \u201cWhat are the choices we\u2019re going to make? Is there a God? Who am I talking to?\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"td-a-ad id_inline_ad0 id_ad_content-horiz-center\"><span class=\"td-adspot-title\">Advertisement<\/span><\/div>\n<p>\u2018The Afterparty\u2019 attempts to answer these questions via a succinct, 25-minute journey through the hazy dregs of a night out: an analogy for a lawless, ungovernable time in society that feels like \u201cthere isn\u2019t a thought or a plan for tomorrow\u201d. Musically, it\u2019s Li\u2019s most transcendent album in years, from the huge, soaring chorus of \u2018Happy Now\u2019 to the string-laced, strangely joyful melancholia of \u2018Lucky Again\u2019 \u2013 the latter recalling her aforementioned Ronson team-up \u2018Late Night Feelings\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>Lyrically, meanwhile, it is full of knotty interrogations of who to trust and how to exist. Across the record, Li talks of \u201c<em>spit<\/em>\u201d and \u201c<em>knives<\/em>\u201d; she calls herself a \u201c<em>fool<\/em>\u201d and a \u201c<em>fucking clown<\/em>\u201d. \u201cThey\u2019ve done studies on how, if you\u2019re able to name a feeling, then your nervous system will regulate,\u201d she notes. \u201cI mean, we all want to feel seen and understood, so when I\u2019m able to use those words for what I\u2019m feeling, then it all makes sense all of a sudden.\u201d<\/p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Lykke Li - Sick Of Love\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/oExw95vBuYo?feature=oembed&amp;enablejsapi=1\" frameborder allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<p>There\u2019s a defiance and an unwillingness to play pretty within all elements of \u2018The Afterparty\u2019 that feels exhilarating. Its cover features the singer sheathed, alien-like, in a pair of sheer tights with smiley faces drawn over her eyes. It\u2019s an image that\u2019s more performance art than pop star \u2013 a shift in presentation that, having just turned 40, Li has been considering the deeper meaning of.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s so much knowledge about how to be young in all the novels, the music, the movies. We have the manual. And then, all of a sudden, you\u2019re 40, and it\u2019s quite uncharted territory,\u201d she says. \u201cYou look at people like Marina Abramovich or Tracey Emin \u2013 there are a few people that continue to be completely themselves and fearless. But if you tune in on a frequency level, there\u2019s sheer panic and fear [about women getting older]. And that, to me, is quite scary. I want the crone perspective to teach me. I want advice from my female elders, because there has to be something beyond that?\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"td-a-ad id_inline_ad1 id_ad_content-horiz-center\">\n<h5 class=\"taboola-mid-article-title\">Recommended<\/h5>\n<\/div>\n<p><strong class=\"dropcap\">I<\/strong>f Li is writing her own rulebook of how to enter your fifth decade while remaining a vital, vibrant pop mainstay, then lesson one is to go all in. While creating \u2018The Afterparty\u2019, she decided to shake off any labels that the outside world might want to put on her and become something else entirely.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs a woman, you\u2019re judged continuously from the first time people see you, and it\u2019s such a confined place,\u201d she reasons. \u201cSo when I was writing this album, I was really like, \u2018I\u2019m going to be a rock god. I\u2019m a fuckboy\u2019. I\u2019m channelling all the British rock gods through time: Mick Jagger, Primal Scream, Oasis, Mike Skinner, Ozzy Osbourne. I\u2019m joining the club.\u201d She pauses, mischievously: \u201cI just wanted to roam free in the night with my big dick out.\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cI want the crone perspective to teach me. I want advice from my female elders\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Alongside embodying her dick-swinging new alter-ego, however, Li had also taken on a simultaneous new identity as a mother of two (her second child was born in 2023). \u201cWhen I was making the album, at times I was like, \u2018What the hell am I doing?!\u2019\u201d she laughs. \u201cIt\u2019s crazy [to channel this] and then come home and have a tiny baby to take care of.\u201d In a previous interview with <em>Vogue<\/em>, she was quoted as saying that she found motherhood and making art \u201cvery incompatible\u201d, but she clarifies it\u2019s not the actual creation that\u2019s the issue, but the way that the music industry treats working artists who are also mothers. \u201cYou realise that it really is a man\u2019s world. If you didn\u2019t know that before, you definitely know that now,\u201d she says wryly.<\/p>\n<p>Change, she suggests, comes from just \u201ckeeping fighting\u201d. \u201cI guess we women have to somehow come together and be like, \u2018Fuck off to all that\u2019,\u201d she shrugs. But having crafted a record of buoyant existentialism after nearly two decades spent expertly marrying life\u2019s beauty and heartbreak, Li has always been an artist able to channel her dualities. \u201cI feel like there\u2019s always a side of me that has these two very opposite forces. It\u2019s always hope and despair. You\u2019re lying face flat on the ground, but you\u2019re also staring up into the blue sky. It\u2019s concrete and heaven at the same time,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n<div class=\"td-a-ad id_inline_ad2 id_ad_content-horiz-center\"><span class=\"td-adspot-title\">Advertisement<\/span><\/div>\n<p>Even the nocturnal world of \u2018The Afterparty\u2019 is one born of contradictions. Last night, she notes, she \u201cdid not sleep for one second\u201d. Her own after-hours tend towards one of two extremes. \u201cIn my home life, I live like a monk, and I\u2019m in a cocoon. But then, when I leave the nest, it gets unhinged pretty fast,\u201d she chuckles. \u201cWhen I did the listening party in LA, I took up drinking that night and had to climb through a window to get home. So it can be like that. I\u2019m creation and destruction at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a proclamation that fits with the singer\u2019s perhaps unexpected love of <em>WrestleMania<\/em>. Watching the \u201cinsanely over the top storylines about betrayal, revenge, all of that\u201d, Li was struck with a revelation. \u201cI\u2019m like, \u2018Oh wow, this is me. This is my life. This is the pop industry that I\u2019m watching\u2019,\u201d she says. \u201cYou see the blood, sweat and tears in these people too, and how much physical damage [they take]. It\u2019s so moving to me \u2013 the sacrifice, the physicality, and then you just get beaten the shit out of. As a female artist, this is what it feels like. It\u2019s ruthless.\u201d It seems not inconsequential that in wrestling, the outcome of who is destined to win or lose \u2013 no matter their efforts \u2013 is also one scripted by an unseen higher power.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_3943480\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3943480\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-3943480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.nme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Lykke-Li-MAIN-PRESS-PHOTO-photo-cred_-Chloe-Le-Drezen.jpeg\" alt=\"Lykke Li\" width=\"2000\" height=\"2860\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-3943480\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lykke Li credit: Chlo\u00e9 Le Drezen<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Yet Li is firmly resisting any predictable narrative. She recently debuted her new stage show at Coachella for the first time \u2013 a set that sees her grappling with a very physical, \u201cpunk\u201d new style of performance \u2013 and is clearly finding the challenge both fulfilling and exhausting. \u201cI love [playing live] in the moment, but I wish that we could do it in my bed, you know? Like, I wish we could all just lie in bed,\u201d she sighs.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps she could follow her performance art heroes and bring the audience to her bedroom? \u201cWell, I\u2019m friends with Lena Dunham, and there is a whole history of bedridden female artists. It\u2019s quite interesting,\u201d she muses. \u201cThere\u2019s a line at the beginning [of Dunham\u2019s recent memoir Famesick] where she\u2019s like, \u2018This industry doesn\u2019t allow for health, sleep, family. You have to just put everything on the line to feed this beast, and then it doesn\u2019t really matter how famous you get or how much money you make, it will still spit you out and chew you up.\u2019 I related to it so much.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s moments like these when you can understand entirely why Lykke Li might want to put a certain phase of her career to bed. She\u2019ll never give up music (\u201cI can\u2019t because that\u2019s what I love most in the whole world,\u201d she reasons), but she\u2019s trying to work out what the next stage might look like. Typically for the Scandinavian iconoclast, by the end of our conversation, she\u2019s already begun to question whether a lack of roadmap is a sign that LP7 is actually the place she should be exploring after all. \u201cPop music is about sex, money and youth. So then what happens after that \u2013 is there anywhere to go?\u201d she considers. \u201cMaybe then that\u2019s exactly what I should be doing. Creativity itself will never close the door on me. So is there a second act?\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Lykke Li\u2019s \u2018The Afterparty\u2019 is out on May 8 via Neon Gold Records.\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>[analyse_source url=&#8221;https:\/\/www.nme.com\/features\/music-interviews\/lykke-li-the-afterparty-interview-3943472&#8243;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[analyse_image type=&#8221;featured&#8221; src=&#8221;https:\/\/www.nme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/lykke-li-afterparty-interview-chloe-le-drezen.jpeg&#8221;] FeaturesMusic Interviews On \u2018The Afterparty\u2019, Lykke Li is sticking two fingers up to traditional pop trajectories Having recently turned 40, the Swedish star is celebrating with an iconoclastic new outlook that writes its own rulebook on &#8216;The Afterparty&#8217; By Lisa Wright 5th May 2026 Lykke Li credit: Chlo\u00e9 Le Drezen In the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[226,78],"class_list":["post-1919124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-crawlmanager","tag-nme-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1919124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1919124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1919124\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1919124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1919124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1919124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}