THE BEST SINGLES OF 2014: 7. LYKKE LI, NO REST FOR THE WICKED While Tove Lo kept singing about staying high all the time, representing Sweden on commercial radio this fall with Habits (Stay High), the song I kept revisiting from Swedish female singers this year was the atmospheric and haunting No Rest For The Wicked by Lykke Li. The first single from her third album, I Never Learn, Li crafted a painful breakup into a soaring ballad that begins with ice cold piano keys twinkling along a mournful vocal where Li asks if she can have another life to love to replace the one that just went away. The truth is...some of the best love songs live in the moments where the pain is all consuming and inescapable and we all have experienced the painful distress Li sings about here at some point in our life. But rather than stay in the maudlin, stone-fisted sadness that threatens to blanket the song, Lis song eventually takes flight, with an orchestra making those ice cold piano stabs seem less cold and distant and more inviting and accessible. As Li talks about there being a momentary absence in things we cherish (rest, calm, a song for a choir...), returning when you put up a fight for what you believe in, you see a song pivot from despair and loss to the realization that there is way out of the darkness by staying true to your convictions. While it took a few listens, when No Rest For The Wicked connects it leaves a huge impression. Every bit worthy of earning Big Hit Song status this year, Lykke Lis fantastic effort was left to the ears of just a few. In what has rightfully been deemed the year of the woman in mainstream music this year, sadly one of its most talented contributors was relegated to the outside looking in.
Posted on: Wed, 17 Dec 2014 21:08:25 +0000
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