For those just tuning in, Fine Tune Friday is me picking out a new song every week and crowning it the best. Subscribe here

Kleerup featuring Lykke Li, "Until We Bleed" (2009)

find it on Kleerup

Like a lot of people (right?), I'm starting on my end-of-decade list of songs, and in the writeup (SPOILER ALERT), I've noticed a word I keep going back to is "fragile". Weird as it is, heartbreak is beautiful, and when someone sounds broken, it's beautiful. PLEASE DO NOT READ TOO MUCH INTO THAT.

Lykke Li has "fragile" stamped all over her like she's a million dollar vase being shipped across the country, and she tops any moment on her own album with this defeated turn with some Scandinavian electronic artist that I'm too lazy to research in depth. Lykke Li doesn't just sound fragile on this song: she sounds absolutely defeated; almost too wrecked to get up to sing. I think it's gorgeous, but then, if you're not like me and go in for movies and music that are unbearably depressing, you may not quite see it that way.