"New Moon" soundtrack
Photo: Summit Entertainment

The "Twilight" soundtrack — featuring music from Paramore, Linkin Park and some guy named — has, to date, sold nearly 2.3 million copies in the U.S. alone and has been a rare bright spot for the music business in these dire times (well, it and Taylor Swift albums).

Compared with Taylor, the "New Moon" soundtrack — which was rush-released on Friday (October 16) to combat early leaks — boasts contributions from the likes of Thom Yorke, Lykke Li and Grizzly Bear (not to mention a first single from Death Cab For Cutie), is pretty dark. It is, as I wrote earlier this week "Music for the masses — or at least the masses who wear glasses and own record players and bought tickets to the Pavement reunion."

Indeed, music supervisor Alexandra Patsavas has compiled what many are calling the indie album of the year, and it's hard to argue with that claim.

Opening with a pair of straightforward jangly/jittery indie tunes, Death Cab's "Meet Me On the Equinox," (which, if you are alive, you've heard by now) and Band of Skulls' "My Friends," the "New Moon" soundtrack quickly downshifts with Thom Yorke's buzzing "Hearing Damage" and Lykke Li's ethereal "Possibility," two thoroughly angsty, artfully sparse standouts that would seem out of place, if not for the murky waters that follow.

The Killers channel Lou Reed on the somber "A White Demon Love Song," which slowly builds to a minor crescendo (and one seriously slippery) guitar solo. Singer/songwriter Anya Marina gets all breathy on "Satellite Heart" and indie icons Bon Iver and St. Vincent do what they do best — churchly, ghostly stuff — on "Rosyln."

The Black Rebel Motorcycle Club do their dark and windswept best with "Done All Wrong," Grizzly Bear's "Slow Life" is hazy, dreamy atmospheric pop and the Editors' "No Sound But the Wind" is a piano-laden ballad buoyed by frontman Tom Smith's brooding baritone.

Of course, there are a few moments of light scattered throughout the darkness. "Twilight" faves Muse contribute a remixed version of "I Belong To You" (the original can be found on their just-released album The Resistance) and it's very much a Muse tune, all stadium-sized vocals and fist-pumping guitars. The Hurricane Bells' "Monster" surges along on a super-skuzzed guitar line, Sea Wolf's "The Violet Hour" is classic swoony indie-pop and OK Go chime in with "Shooting the Moon," which, with its timpani punch and oddball sound effects, is an unexpected highlight, sounding very much like a mid-decade Flaming Lips' cast-off.

All in all, it's a very fine soundtrack. But it's also a decidedly left-of-center one, full of minor-key contributions from comparatively left-field artists. Here's to hoping it introduces those artists to millions of new and rabid fans ...

Check out everything we've got on "The Twilight Saga: New Moon."

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• MTV News Extended Play: 'New Moon' Soundtrack

• Death Cab For Cutie
• Lykke Li

Kristen Stewart in "New Moon"
Photo: Summit Entertainment

Early last November, weeks before Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart introduced the world to "Twilight" movie madness, the film's soundtrack shot straight to the top of the Billboard albums chart. After conquering bookstores and on its way to a $70 million opening weekend at theaters, "Twilight" had showed it could rock your iPod too.

Fast-forward a year, and it's set to happen again. Little more than a month before "New Moon" premieres, the movie's soundtrack is looking to make a splash when it drops Friday (October 16). MTV News has been mapping the universe of "New Moon" music for months — which bands made the cut, which bands didn't, what the lucky few had to say about being selected — and we've gathered all our reporting together so you will know everything there is to know about the movie's tunes, in MTV's "New Moon" soundtrack cheat sheet:

The First Soundtrack
News about the original "Twilight" soundtrack started to trickle out as early as April 2008, when MTV News visited the movie's Oregon set and reported that to the disc. That summer at Comic-Con, director Catherine Hardwicke confirmed the info, saying he'd composed three songs. While only one RPattz track, "Never Think," made the cut, the Brit actor was joined on the soundtrack by Muse, Paramore, Perry Farrell and Linkin Park, among others.

" 'Twilight' really caught my attention and held it," Paramore's Hayley Williams told MTV News that September. "I'm really excited to see the book adapted to film and excited that our band gets to be a part of the phenomenon."

The soundtrack ended up selling 164,700 its first week on its way to achieving double-platinum status.

Collecting the 'New Moon' Sounds
Which bands would get the call for the soundtrack sequel? For months, there was a whole lot of speculation without much in the way of solid answers. Coldplay, Kelly Clarkson, Thom Yorke and the Kings of Leon were among the names floated early on. The first verified news came in August, when MTV News revealed that Death Cab for Cutie had secured the soundtrack's first single with their tune "Meet Me on the Equinox." We then premiered the song during VMA weekend.

After weeks of guesswork and insider leaks, "Twilight" author Stephenie Meyer unveiled the full track list on her Web site September 21. The artists and bands included Muse, the Killers, Thom Yorke, Lykke Li and OK Go.

The Artists Speak
Ever since the lineup went public, MTV News has been hitting up these musicians for their thoughts on joining the "Twilight" universe and the inside word about the songs they've contributed.

"We were all really excited to be asked to write for it, because it had become such a massive phenomenon," Death Cab frontman Ben Gibbard said. "We wrote and recorded the song and turned it in, and you hoped the people deemed it worthy."

It was indeed deemed worthy, as was the track recorded by Bon Iver and St. Vincent called "Rosyln." "I think there's something vampirey and creepy about the two of us singing together," said St. Vincent, whose real name is Annie Clark. "It's a simple, stripped-down kind of song. It's really elegant and beautiful."

Swedish singer Lykke Li revealed that she caught an early viewing of "New Moon," sat down at the piano and composed "Possibility." "It's almost like a fever haze," she explained. "It's very repetitive, like a mood you go into. ... The lyrics are like, 'When you walk, you walk like a thief with blood on your hands, because I die when you leave me.' "

Returning for the second "Twilight" soundtrack, Muse said they were thankful for the increased exposure. "I think our music has reached out to whole loads of new people that haven't heard us before," drummer Dominic Howard said. "It's great to know that people are discovering our music. It's a nice side project to be involved in."

The Vampire Future
The "Twilight" future is actually arriving a bit early this year — four days, to be exact — after the soundtrack release date was shifted from October 20 to October 16. But what comes next? "Eclipse," the third of the franchise films, is in the midst of shooting in Vancouver. Which musicians might make it onto that soundtrack?

Muse have hinted that the band will be contributing music yet again to the franchise. "We might even do something for the third one," Howard told us. "How about that for a scoop?"

But for now, it's all just speculation. And here's some more: Jackson Rathbone, who plays vampire Jasper Cullen, leads a band called 100 Monkeys, which is providing the soundtrack and score for his upcoming movie "Girlfriend." Could this mean that Rathbone might show up on "Eclipse," as Pattinson did on "Twilight"?

"We'd love it," Rathbone told MTV News in June. "[But] we're not really pushing for it. It's one of those things where if they want to put our song on the album, I'm not going to complain."

Check out everything we've got on "The Twilight Saga: New Moon."

For breaking news, celebrity columns, humor and more — updated around the clock — visit MTVMoviesBlog.com.

• MTV News Extended Play: 'New Moon' Soundtrack

• The 'New Moon' Soundtrack Artists

• Death Cab For Cutie
• Muse
• Lykke Li
• OK Go

Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner in "New Moon"
Photo: Summit Entertainment

You hear a lot about albums being pushed back for a bit of track tweaking or new recording, but unless a CD leaks early online, you rarely see release dates for major CDs pushed forward.

But when you're dealing with anything "Twilight"-related, the old rules don't apply. According to a press release issued on Tuesday (October 13), due to "overwhelming and unprecedented" demand, the release date for the soundtrack to "New Moon" is being pushed up by four days from its original October 20 release to this Friday, October 16.

That means the disc will be in stores more than a full month before "New Moon" hits screens on November 20. The heat on the soundtrack has carefully been stoked by a series of slow reveals of the goods, beginning with the unveiling of the Death Cab for Cutie contribution, "Meet Me on the Equinox," during last month's VMAs, followed by the song's video premiere last week.

The full lineup of the soundtrack was released last month, boasting such household names as Radiohead's Thom Yorke, Muse, the Killers, OK Go, Grizzly Bear and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and lesser-known acts such as Band of Skulls, Lykke Li, Anya Marina, Bon Iver with St. Vincent, Hurricane Bells, Sea Wolf and the Editors. And then, just this last week, 30-second clips of all of the songs appeared online on the UK Amazon.com site.

Read our interviews with Lykke Li and OK Go about their connection to the "Twilight" saga, and check back with MTV News all week long for more stories about the "New Moon" soundtrack.

Check out everything we've got on "The Twilight Saga: New Moon."

For breaking news, celebrity columns, humor and more — updated around the clock — visit MTVMoviesBlog.com.

• MTV News Extended Play: 'New Moon' Soundtrack
• Exclusive Video Premiere: Death Cab For Cutie's 'Equinox'

• "New Moon"

• Death Cab For Cutie
• OK Go
• Lykke Li

Lykke Li
Photo: MTV News

When Lykke Li was presented with the opportunity to write a song for the "New Moon" soundtrack, she did what any bubbling-beneath-the-surface artist would've done: She thought about it for a really long time.

"Everyone kept asking me if I wanted to do it, how [the song] was going, when would I have it finished, and I was like, 'Eh, I don't know, maybe I'll do it, maybe I won't,' " she laughed. "I mean, I had heard of the 'Twilight' phenomenon, but I didn't read the books or watch the first movie or anything. I mean, I'm Swedish."

She's not trying to sound glib. That's just how the 23-year-old Li works. She found fame and acclaim (more so back home than abroad, but who's counting?) with her 2008 album Youth Novels, a simmering, sexy disc that built indelibly unique pop music out of sources both organic (handclaps, foot stomps, etc) and mechanical (808s, theremins, etc.). She has since toured the world and spent much of her time trying to figure out what to do next. Writing a song for a very major Hollywood picture just didn't seem to be in the cards.

Until she saw "New Moon," that is. Then, suddenly, she was hooked.

"I stayed [in Los Angeles] and watched the movie, when it only had green screen on it. I had this hook in my mind, even before I saw the movie, and then I was watching it, and I was like, 'That's the hook!' " she said. "So it was very much like a discovery, inside myself and musically. I had this song growing inside of me that I had to get out, and [the film] was the trigger. Because I really connected with Bella and Edward's tortured love story."

So Li sat down at her piano and wrote "Possibility," a very maudlin song about love and pain and, ultimately, death. Lots of death. Like we said, she doesn't operate like most of her pop contemporaries.

"I get very visual when I make the songs. It's really quite serious. It's almost like a fever haze. It's very repetitive, like a mood you go into. But it's really serious, because, if you're really, really in love, and somebody leaves you, that's a very serious thing," Li explained. "And so the lyrics are like, 'When you walk, you walk like a thief with blood on your hands, because I die when you leave me.' It's in this limbo that, when the song is done, you don't know if I've survived or not. It's very much like a fever, like, 'Oh, my God, it's hot, she's going to die, maybe she did die?' It lingers on, into the next life. It's dark."

It's a complex, moody song on an album positively teeming with them, mostly written by lesser-known, decidedly indie acts. Which, again, was part of the reason Li signed up. She doesn't see this as a simple soundtrack; to her, it's part of a much larger mission.

"We've been feeding people such sh--. Why can't we feed them good things? I really thought about that too," she smiled. "Because I know Robert Pattinson is this big teen idol, but I remember watching 'Romeo + Juliet' with Leonardo DiCaprio, and I was, like, in love. I cried, like, five times. And the soundtrack to that movie is so good, you know? Really well-chosen songs. Not commercial. I think it's great, and hopefully we can do that again."

Check out everything we've got on "The Twilight Saga: New Moon."

For breaking news, celebrity columns, humor and more — updated around the clock — visit MTVMoviesBlog.com.

• The 'New Moon' Soundtrack Artists
• Frame By Frame: "New Moon" Trailer 3

• Lykke Li

"New Moon" soundtrack cover
Photo: Summit Entertainment

It's not a leak, but the site British Amazon.com has given fans an unexpected preview of the hotly anticipated "New Moon" soundtrack (which hits stores on October 20) by posting a 30-second snippet of each song on the album.

Which means that, if you were wondering what Thom Yorke's "Hearing Damage" or the Killers' "A White Demon Love Song" sounds like, you're in luck! (BTW, the answers are "An outtake from The Eraser" and "Lou Reed," respectively.)

Based on these clips, Lykke Li's "Possibility" evokes a hazy fever dream, Muse's "New Moon" remix of "I Belong to You" (the original version of which appears on their just-released album The Resistance) is a stately minuet, Bon Iver and St. Vincent's "Rosyln" is hushed and churchly, and OK Go's "Shooting the Moon" — with its weird sound effects — reminds us a whole lot of a Flaming Lips track.

The Friday unveiling of snippets from the "New Moon" soundtrack is a fitting way to cap off what's already been a pretty huge week for members of Twilight Nation. On Wednesday, after months of hype, the video for the first single off the album — Death Cab for Cutie's "Meet Me on the Equinox" — premiered on MTV, and fans of the series responded with gusto (though they would've preferred more shirtless Robert Pattinson, to be honest). And MTV News will have lots more about the soundtrack in a series of articles that begin publishing on Monday!

The Amazon preview only appears on the United Kingdom version of the site; at press time, the U.S. site did not contain any snippets of songs from the soundtrack.

• Pages From The 'New Moon' Official Illustrated Movie Companion Book
• The 'New Moon' Soundtrack Artists
• Frame By Frame: "New Moon" Trailer 3

• Muse
• Lykke Li
• The Killers
• Thom Yorke

Lykke Li
Photo: Getty Images/ Mark Allan

Anyone who knows anything about "Twilight" scribe Stephenie Meyer knows that the vampire-spawning writer has eclectic taste in music. Earlier this year, she blogged about what she did all summer, which included listening to bands you may or may not know like Meese and White Rabbits, as well as some you might, like Muse, Animal Collective and Silversun Pickups.

She's posted suggested playlists for fans of her book series that includes everything from Placebo, Blue October and Armor for Sleep to Elbow, Coldplay, Patrick Wolf, Simon and Garfunkel, Korn, Incubus, Nine Inch Nails and Right Said Fred.

On Monday, the track listing for the upcoming soundtrack to "New Moon" was revealed and it has the same mix of the popular and somewhat-obscure that fans have come to expect from Meyer. The 15 all-new or exclusive tracks feature some of the names that have been kicking around for a while, such as Muse, who refashioned the baroque "I Belong To You" from their new album, The Resistance at director Chris Weitz's behest and Death Cab for Cutie, whose "Meet Me On The Equinox" debuted on MTV.com recently.

	The 'New Moon' Soundtrack Bands And Artists

Other big names include the Killers ("A White Demon Love Song"), Radiohead's Thom Yorke ("Hearing Damage") and viral video sensations OK Go ("Shooting the Moon"). But there are also a number of acts whose names you might not recognize, so here's a quick primer:

Band of Skulls ("Friends"): This White Stripes-by-way-of-Radiohead English trio formed in 2008 and released the blues-rocking Baby Darling Doll Face Honey in March. They played at this summer's Lollapalooza festival and feature the alternating vocals of bassist Emma Richardson and guitarist Russell Mardsen.

Lykke Li ("Possibility"): Another veteran of Lollapalooza 2009, the Swedish answer to Lady Gaga has gained a legion of fans (among them MTV's own Kurt Loder) for the intensely rhythmic and hypnotic dance music on her debut, Youth Novels.

Anya Marina ("Satellite Heart"): The San Diego-based singer/songwriter, sometime actress ("100 Girls") and radio DJ released her second album of playfully sexy pop tunes, Slow & Steady Seduction: Phase II in January. Her songs have been featured "The Real World," "Gossip Girl," "Grey's Anatomy" and "How I Met Your Mother."

Bon Iver & St. Vincent ("Rosyln"): He's sensitive folkie Justin Vernon, whose For Emma, Forever Ago was recorded under the name Bon Iver in a remote cabin in Wisconsin in 2007 and became a blog sensation in 2008. She's Annie Clark, a member of the Polyphonic Spree and Sufjan Stevens' touring band who performs as the St. Vincent. Her second album, Actor, was released in May and featured orchestrated pop songs she said were potential fodder for film scores.

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club ("Done All Wrong"): This L.A.-based psychedelic garage rock act — named after Marlon Brando's motorcycle gang in 1953's "The Wild One" — have been thrashing around since 1998 and have released five albums of twisty, heady rock.

Hurricane Bells ("Monsters"): A side project from Longwave singer/guitarist Steve Schiltz, this unsigned band will release its debut next year. The mellow, country-tinged songs on the Bells' MySpace page promise some seriously introspective, rainy-day pop gems.

Sea Wolf ("The Violet Hour"): The now-main project from former Irving member Alex Church, this California act got its start when Church's tunes didn't fit into Irving's more 1960s inspired psychedelic pop sound. As a result, Church broke off and pursued an Americana-inspired orchestral country-pop sound on albums such as this year's White Water, White Bloom.

Grizzly Bear ("Slow Life"): The beloved Brooklyn indie-rock band known for mixing folk with electronic instruments released one of this year's most acclaimed albums in May, Veckatimest. Their mix of acoustic guitars, chamber pop, electronic bloops and gorgeous melodies have earned them major blog props.

Editors ("No Sound But the Wind"): England's Editors emerged out of the dark rock sound of bands like Interpol and their inspiration, Joy Division, earning a string of overseas hits with alluring tunes like "Bullets" and "Smokers Outside the Hospital Doors."

Alexandre Desplat ("New Moon (The Meadow)"): The French composer has scored more than 100 films and TV shows since 1985. He's best known for his Golden Globe-nominated score to "Girl with a Pearl Earring," as well as contemplative soundtracks to "Hostage," "Syriana," "The Painted Veil" and "The Queen," which earned his first Oscar nomination.

The "New Moon" soundtrack is available on October 20 on Atlantic Records, exactly one month before "New Moon" opens in theaters on November 20.

Check out everything we've got on "The Twilight Saga: New Moon."

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• VMA 2009 Exclusive Premieres

• The 'New Moon' Soundtrack Artists

• Lykke Li
• Sea Wolf

Kanye West and Pusha T perform at the Diesel show at Webster Hall in New York City on Thursday
Photo: Theo Wargo/ WireImage

NEW YORK — The Diesel show at Webster Hall Thursday night was on a smaller scale than the denim brand's 30th-anniversary celebration last year, but with performances from the Clipse, the Roots, Cobra Starship and surprise appearances from Kanye West and Lykke Li, it packed a powerful punch.

Last October, Diesel celebrated its 30th birthday by throwing parties all over the world in cities like Tokyo, Paris and Sao Paolo. The New York party was held at Brooklyn's Pier 3, which was transformed into a circus tent featuring high-wire acts, thousands of screaming fans and performances from T.I., Franz Ferdinand, N.E.R.D and a then-pregnant M.I.A.

Thursday night's show wasn't nearly as extravagant but, with hundreds of fans packed into the sweltering venue, it was a lot more intimate.

	Kanye West, Clipse, Cobra Starship Live In New York

Theophilus London was one of the show's openers, mashing up dance and electronic music with African rock and jazz to the crowd's delight. Passion Pit performed next, with a set of winning pop drawn largely from their recent debut LP.

Cobra Starship followed, but they were initially hampered by sound troubles. After lead singer Gabe Saporta pleaded for a new mic, the band continued their set, including a Leighton Meester-less performance of "Good Girls Go Bad."

Drake was scheduled to perform as well, but rumors were circulating all day that the Toronto MC had pulled out due to his much-publicized ACL injury and was scheduled to be replaced by the Clipse. Those rumors were confirmed when the brothers Thornton could be heard soundchecking their mics as the DJ spun a medley of their tracks. Still, the crowd was caught by surprise when they actually started to perform.

Pusha and Malice tore through a battery of tracks, including "Grindin'," "Keys Open Doors" and "Mr. Me Too." The crowd rapped along with every word, and the Clipse rewarded them with a surprise guest: During their performance of "Kinda Like a Big Deal," Kanye West hit the stage to perform his verse, causing the crowd to erupt. Camera phones lit up to catch West onstage, who stayed there until the song was done.

Finally, the Roots crew closed the show. Black Thought called on the audience to keep the energy up, waving his mic and yelling, "Can I get some head?" The crowd erupted each time the Philly MC asked, causing him to laugh and continue asking.

People in the audience speculated that Jay-Z would join the Roots onstage, but out came Lykke Li instead. The Swedish pop songstress did not disappoint — in fact, she stole the show, mesmerizing the already hyped hip-hop crowd with Roots-backed performances of "Little Bit" and "Dance, Dance, Dance."

Then she proceeded to "assist" ?uestlove by banging raucously on his drums before joining Black Thought for a performance of "The Seed 2.0" and concluding with "Breaking It Up." The MC closed the set with an impressive — to say the least — display of lyrical prowess and lung control.

As they left the stage, some fans began to halfheartedly chant Jay-Z's name, only to give up, realizing they had enjoyed more than enough.

• Kanye West, Clipse, Cobra Starship Live In New York

• Kanye West
• Clipse
• Lykke Li
• Cobra Starship
• The Roots

Chromeo and Vampire Weekend perform at the mtvU Woodie Awards last week
Photo: MTV News

The 2008 MTVU Woodie Awards taped last week, and the night, as usual, was filled with hot talent. Paramore, All-American Rejects, All Time Low and many others were in attendance — but the focus during the show was on the performances, specifically special collaborations between artists that were organized for the event.

And this year's show did not disappoint with its ambitious team-ups: world-pop outfit Vampire Weekend and dance-rock mavens Chromeo; Swedish chanteuse Lykke Li (who's been covering A Tribe Called Quest's "Can I Kick It") with Tribe Called Quest MC Q-Tip; and two rising hip-hop stars (and buds themselves), the Cool Kids and Asher Roth.

We snuck into rehearsals, where Vampire Weekend frontman Ezra Koenig told MTV News: "I think we're all excited. This is our first time to play with any other musicians since way back in the day, when we collaborated with John Atkinson of [Brooklyn indie outfit] Aa," apparently forgetting about the show last summer when Andrew W.K. joined the band onstage for a Tom Petty cover.

After the rehearsal, Chromeo's Dave 1 assessed, "It's about 70 percent there. They play with a little different swing than I heard in my head. We still have to work on it — we just put it together now. ... Pete [a.k.a. bandmate P-Thug] and I are going to take our instruments home to practice."

The Cool Kids and Asher Roth had a different approach to rehearsals: The Kids' Chuck Inglish stood onstage and proclaimed, "I don't think we should rehearse it!" while cohort Mikey Rocks added, "Let's just go with it when we get up there — we get the basic premise." The duo met the up-and coming Roth when he came to Chicago to work on some tracks for his upcoming record. "We're the same age and we do dope music," Asher said of what the two artists have in common. "When you do things the way we do, it makes it easy," Inglish added.

But not all of the night's collaborators knew each other ahead of time: the Woodie rehearsals brought together Lykke Li with Q-Tip for the very first time, but Li's covering "Can I Kick It?" during her live sets certainly broke the ice. Q-Tip said he hadn't known who Li was before, but he's "glad it happened and found out who she is — her album is amazing."

All seemed to go well for the pair during the rehearsals, too. "He's like a pro," Li said. "It was real easy — it took one minute to get it all together."

And with rehearsals over and done, the stage was set for the big show.

The 2008 mtvU Woodie Awards will premiere in full on mtvU, mtvU.com and the HD channel Palladia on Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET

• Q-Tip And Lykke Li, Vampire Weekend And Chromeo: Odd Collaborations Rule At The mtvU Woodie Awards

• Paramore, All-American Rejects, More Take Home Timber At The 2008 mtvU Woodie Awards

• Q-Tip
• The Cool Kids
• Asher Roth
• Chromeo
• Vampire Weekend

Lykke Li
Photo: Getty Images/ Mark Allan

Lykke Li, the latest and maybe the brightest of the aspiring stars in the current wave of Swedish pop phenomena, is only 22 years old, but she's already had an interesting life. Not all that surprising, possibly, since both of her parents are musicians. Her father, Johan Zachrisson, played in a long-running rock-reggae band called Dag Vag, and her mother, Karsti Stiege, was a member of an all-girl '80s punk group called Tant Strul. Well, briefly a member.

"She was a punk for three months," Li says. "It was more of a thing you do when you're young: 'Let's have a punk band!' " Mom soon moved on to photography, and when Lykke was six, the family relocated to Portugal, where they lived in a house in the mountains ("We had a donkey"), and made excursions to India in the winters. Eventually they returned to Stockholm, where Li finished school. Then, at 19, eager to get started on some sort of music career, she moved to New York City — Brooklyn, to be exact, where she shared a dump of an apartment with a fleet of cockroaches.

"I signed up for some improvisation classes, so I could practice my English," she says. "And I did some open-mic nights, and I played in the park, you know? I just partied, I guess."

When her visa ran out, she returned to Stockholm. Her father encouraged her to keep pursuing a music career and hooked her up with an old friend of his, Björn Yttling, then already scoring international hits with the pop trio Peter Björn and John. Lykke was dubious.

"He produced a lot of indie people — 'I hate myself' kind of music. I didn't know about Peter Björn and John. But I needed somebody to record me. And then we met, and it was a perfect match."

Yttling has co-writing credits on all the songs on Li's debut album, Youth Novels, and his generally minimalist arrangements are a substantial part of the record's charm. Lykke is appreciative of his input.

"He said, 'Sing me some songs,' so I sang with the piano. He said, 'OK, we can work with this — it's not perfect, but it's something we can work with.' It was good. I was writing on my own, and he gave me feedback."

Last year, those sessions produced an EP called Little Bit, the title track of which became a modest hit. She promoted her work on her MySpace page and with a collection of mostly low-tech YouTube videos (two million hits and counting). She also has her own little label, LL Recordings. Life at the moment is very good.

A common assumption about the Swedish music scene — from ABBA in the '70s through such subsequent acts as the Hives, Sahara Hotnights, Jens Lekman and El Perro Del Mar — is that they've all inherited some sort of national pop gene. Li dismisses this — nothing ever comes that easy.

"We don't have a lot of stuff to do in Stockholm," she says. "So you might as well be at home making songs, 'cause there's nothing to do on the streets. But you have to learn; you have to write. You still have to fight for it."

• Swedish Sensation Lykke Li

• Lykke Li

Lykke Li Performs at Le Poisson Rouge in NYC on Thursday
Photo: Getty Images/ Roger Kisby

NEW YORK — Swedish pop phenom and possible Stateside star-to-be Lykke Li played the second date of a U.S. minitour on Thursday night, a sold-out show at a Greenwich Village nightclub. The crowd seemed very NYU, and many of them were singing along to the songs. This was no tremendous surprise: Li's debut album, the dazzling Youth Novels, was only released in this country last week, but her various European videos have already scored more than 2-million hits on YouTube.

Li's record was produced by Björn Yttling, of Peter Björn and John, who also helps craft the songs she writes. The sound is stripped down and the music is hard — impossible, actually — to label. It's irresistibly danceable (Li is a big hip-hop fan), but it's not "dance music." It has the rhythmic punch and melodic propulsion of rock (her mother was a member of an all-girl punk band back in the '80s), but it's not strictly "rock music" either. The album also contains one of the year's most ravishing ballads — a track called "Tonight" — which makes her work all the harder to pin down. (Li's name, by the way, is pronounced "Licky-lee," and uttered as if it were one word.)

The club she played, a relatively new venue called Le Poisson Rouge, was ideal for her current show, which is very straightforward. Some 600 people were arrayed at tables and up on risers around a circular stage in the middle of the room. The high-end lighting technology seemed to reflect the state of that particular art, and the sound system was that rare thing, a model of both bone-shivering power and absolute clarity. Since Li's music includes some subtle details that might otherwise go missing, this was a perfect environment.

She has an unusual three-piece band: a keyboardist who switches off between synthesizer and piano, a guitarist who alternates between bass and nylon-string acoustic (no electric guitars, but he riffs anyway), and a drummer who can do a lot of interesting things just clacking away on the rim of his floor tom, which has a cowbell taped to its top. The group is very tight, and Li, who's only 22, takes the stage like she just bought it, whipping the air with her long blonde hair (gone is the tight little bun of the Euro videos), occasionally feeding her powerful alto through a raspy megaphone, and at one point tossing off a little solo on toy trumpet.

She gave the enthusiastic crowd pretty much what it expected off her album, including the overseas hits "I'm Good, I'm Gone" (also the first single here) and "Little Bit," as well as such standout tracks as the dreamy "Dance, Dance, Dance" (a song which isn't exactly what you might assume it to be). Every now and then she whacked a tambourine, smacked a cymbal and turned her boot heels into a very persuasive rhythm instrument. People were eating it up.

Halfway through the performance, she scanned the room and announced, "It's all right to kiss at my shows." Sweet. I doubt if anyone took her up on that, though. All eyes were, and who knows, may remain, on Lykke Li.

For more sights and stories from concerts around the country, check out MTV News Tour Reports. And send your own concert pics, videos and reviews to MTV News You R Here!

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