No typical Swede

I despise Eurovision. I shoot myself in the head every time it’s on TV -“ It’s fucking rubbish and absolute crap, said Swedish-born singer Lykke Li.

There’s bound to some Eurovision-haters from Scandinavia but guess what else she hates? Blonde disco singers from Sweden.

I don’t care about blonde singers. Why should I fucking care about blonde singers from Sweden?

Yeah, I have blonde hair at the moment but does that make me a blonde singer from Sweden? No, because I have more similarities with Mick Jagger than I have with some blonde singers from Sweden -¦ not saying that I am as good as Mick Jagger but I can dance like him.

Lykke Li is an edgy 22-year-old and the mastermind of one of the most relentlessly beguiling songs of last year, Little Bit, a mysteriously romantic tune that highlights her haunting vocal ability, dark lyrics and that famous couplet -” And for you I keep my legs apart / and forget about my tainted heart.

She feels the reason she has a massive following in the GLBT community is because of how she views her own gender.

I think I am cross-gendered somehow. I don’t see myself like a woman or a man. I just try and not be anything -¦ I want to be a man as much as I want to be a woman, she said.

You should see me live and you see what I’m talking about. I think people lost their moves along the line. I’m going to dance for you. I’ve really evolved as a singer and so I wanted people to hear that.

Li looks up to people like Nina Simone and Edith Piaf but emphasised that although she may look up to them, she doesn’t want to be them.

Everybody has their own life and journey and you can never be anybody else -” even though you want to, she hummed down the phone.

This album [Youth Novels] is very personal. I just went in and opened myself up completely and it’s out there and that’s why people feel it as well.

I think that’s all I can do. It would be so weird telling what inspiration I had or where I was coming from -¦ I just wanted to make an album that reflected my time. It was a snapshot. I did it and I guess it took a lot of courage.

info: Youth Novels is out now through Warner Music.