Lykke Li’s fourth album shifts away from the dream-poppy breakup ballads of 2014's I Never Learn toward airy, melancholic takes on trap and R&B. Despite the contemporary framing (the idea of sadness itself has become a topic of campy, meme-driven internet fascination), so sad so sexy feels less like a bandwagon jump than the work of a singer/songwriter committed to exploring blue moods in all their musical forms. It hints at girl-group pop (“utopia”), power ballads (“bad woman,” “so sad so sexy”), prewar torch songs, and the gilded ennui of artists like Lana Del Rey and Drake (“hard rain,” “deep end”). Wounded but quietly triumphant, so sad is the sound of the cloud—and its silver lining.