LYKKE LI

Click above to watch Lykke Li introduce herself, and find out about her dance skills and lyrical inspiration

When Lykke Li was growing up, her hippie parents sold all of the family's belongings, moved from Sweden to a mountaintop in Portugal, and spent the next five years pursuing photography, playing in jazz bands and going to wild raves. "I was embarrassed to be at those parties, with my mother going all crazy," the 22-year-old singer remembers. So she rebelled against her parents by listening to mainstream music: "I sang to Michael Jackson in front of the mirror."

Produced by Björn Yttling of Peter Bjorn and John, Li's debut, Youth Novels, combines her pop sensibility with her international upbringing. Layering little-girl vocals over digital beats, Caribbean steel drums and Spanish-guitar accents, the album has moved Li to the forefront of the buzzy Swedish indie-pop scene — and earned her the fandom of Bryan Ferry. But success hasn't stripped her of those bohemian roots. "I've always been like, 'I want to be a big pop star — and then I want to get pregnant and move to Algeria and have a house full of men and animals,' " she says. "I want to be Madonna someday, but I want to be Angelina Jolie, too, you know?" MELISSA MAERZ

HOME BASE Stockholm

FOR FANS OF Björk, Kate Bush, Annie, Feist

SPIN THIS "Little Bit," a quietly shuffling, girl-group-style pop ballad that rhymes "legs apart" with "tainted heart."

22683004 Photograph by Marcus Palmqvist

Check out more Artists to Watch