--- title: Review: Lykke Li, 'I Never Learn' description: The Swedish singer-songwriter doubles down on heartache for the third album in a trilogy of dreamy indie pop canonical: https://time.com/88838/lykke-li-i-never-learn-review/ author: Nolan Feeney article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-05-06T14:57:50.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-21T07:40:13.855Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: Review: Lykke Li, 'I Never Learn' og:description: The Swedish singer-songwriter doubles down on heartache for the third album in a trilogy of dreamy indie pop og:url: https://time.com/88838/lykke-li-i-never-learn-review/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4cba6b0632ebc7e0/69868e08810bbbff3fc91684/ineverlearn.png?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Lykke Li, 'I Never Learn' og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Review: Lykke Li, 'I Never Learn' twitter:description: The Swedish singer-songwriter doubles down on heartache for the third album in a trilogy of dreamy indie pop twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4cba6b0632ebc7e0/69868e08810bbbff3fc91684/ineverlearn.png?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # REVIEW: Lykke Li Gets Her Heart Broken on _I Never Learn_ > Sponsored content. 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Terms and conditions apply. * Savings buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Savings Account. * No ATM fees from Ally Bank at Allpoint and Moneypass ATMs plus we reimburse for fees charged by other ATM owners nationwide up to $10 per statement cycle. * Early direct deposit offers eligible direct deposits up to two days sooner. * Spending buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Spending Account.  by [Nolan Feeney](https://time.com/author/nolan-feeney/)  ## Nolan Feeney May 6, 2014 2:57 PM UTC  Lykke Li, I Never Learn Lykke Li, I Never LearnLL/Atlantic  by [Nolan Feeney](https://time.com/author/nolan-feeney/)  ## Nolan Feeney May 6, 2014 2:57 PM UTC Lykke Li loves to suffer. For her first album, 2008’s _Youth Novels_, the 28-year-old Swede wrote an entire song about how much [she loves crying](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zl5RcA8ZFM0). And not just regular tears — big, salty, puffy-eyed, smeared-mascara tears. For her 2011 follow-up, _Wounded Rhymes_, she wrote a song comparing [sadness to a boyfriend](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xu-b3u5jDiU) she couldn’t bear to leave — that’s how ambivalent she was about her own happiness. Li made the type of record you put on to wallow in your bad mood, not get out of it. So when she announced the third installment in her dreamy indie pop trilogy about [twentysomething life](http://time.com/86278/lykke-li-i-never-learn-new-album/), _I Never Learn_, it seemed like Li was doubling down on her speciality following an [existential crisis](http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/pop-shop/6062833/lykke-lis-wounded-new-album-i-only-thought-i-knew-what-heartbreak) in Los Angeles and a painful breakup that [“really killed”](http://pitchfork.com/features/articles/9392-lykke-li-better-off-alone/) her. That’s mostly true: _I Never Learn_, out now, is Li’s bleakest album to date, a nine-song collection of raw, elegant tunes whose titles (“Sleeping Alone,” “Never Gonna Love Again,” “Heart of Steel”) reveal just how terrible a time the young singer-songwriter was having. Li’s voice is as enchanting as ever, but _I Never Learn_ just misses the high bar set by its predecessors. It can’t be the noticeably sparser arrangements — though _I Never Learn_ lacks the booming percussion of _Wounded Rhymes_ or the bright production quirks of _Youth Novels_, Li has never been one to depend on whatever happens in the studio. (Li’s longtime collaborator Bjørn Yttling, of Peter Bjorn and John fame, returns for the majority of production duties.) In fact, she excels at writing songs that work just as well [stripped](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdtoY3Fv%5F8M) [down](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=%5FfgbTvfCgSk) as they do [dressed up](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqTaz4-6CUo). Her weapons of choice on _I Never Learn_ — acoustic guitars and piano chords that sound like they were hammered out in love-scorned fury — are appropriate for her most vulnerable album to date; she can barely get the words out on the final chorus of “Love Me Like I’m Not Made of Stone.” It can’t be the subject matter, either. On her debut, Li alternated between youthful naiveté and coming-of-age confidence as she tiptoed around pain, while _Wounded Rhymes_ explored turning that pain into power when it all fell apart. _I Never Learn_, by contrast, has a less complicated relationship with sadness — straight heartbreak, no chaser — and its best material lets it rip with the drama. “Gunshot” compares a toxic relationship to a fatal head injury over snare drums meant to sound like fired bullets (not a new trick by any means, but producer Greg Kurstin deserves props for doing so without being too distracting). On “No Rest for the Wicked,” her whimperings about loneliness are endearingly pathetic. By design, _I Never Learn_ is not supposed to be fun. But the simplest and most likely answer to why _I Never Learn_ is at times underwhelming is probably the least interesting: The songs as a whole just aren’t her best work to date; the hooks aren’t as crisp and the melodies aren’t as memorable. That’s fine — it happens to even the best musicians — but it’s almost cause for concern considering Li’s stated goal for the album was to showcase her [songwriting abilities](http://www.rollingstone.com/music/videos/lykke-li-previews-new-album-i-never-learn-with-haunting-video-20140227), not her pop star potential (as if, in 2014, the two were somehow mutually exclusive). If this is the album she feels she has to write to gain greater credibility, that’s unfortunate; if this is just a weaker link in an artist’s otherwise impressive catalog, that’s understandable. The good news is that, if _I Never Learn_’s title is any indication, she always runs back to her old ways. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/88838/lykke-li-i-never-learn-review/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/88838/lykke-li-i-never-learn-review/"},"headline":"REVIEW: Lykke Li Gets Her Heart Broken on I Never Learn","datePublished":"2014-05-06T14:57:50.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-21T07:40:13.855Z","description":"The Swedish singer-songwriter doubles down on heartache for the third album in a trilogy of dreamy indie pop","url":"https://time.com/88838/lykke-li-i-never-learn-review/","keywords":["Music","Reviews"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4cba6b0632ebc7e0/69868e08810bbbff3fc91684/ineverlearn.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Nolan Feeney","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/nolan-feeney/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4cba6b0632ebc7e0/69868e08810bbbff3fc91684/ineverlearn.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Lykke Li, 'I Never Learn'","caption":"Lykke Li, 'I Never Learn'","creditText":"LL/Atlantic","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/88838/lykke-li-i-never-learn-review/","name":"REVIEW: Lykke Li Gets Her Heart Broken on I Never Learn"}}]}] ```