Life on the road for Swedish pop singer Lykke Li means never having to say you’re bored. “I just saw my schedule, and I’m not going to have time to breathe for like the next year, but whatever, I love this.” With her plaintively percolating debut CD Youth Novels attracting an intense following at home and abroad, the feisty 22-year-old siren plans on going the way of so many legends before her: “First, I need to become an alcoholic, go to rehab and lose all my money,” she says, and then reconsiders. “Wait, I don’t have any money. So I’d have to get it first, and then lose it.”

Three years ago, after a Madonna-inspired New York stint, Li returned to Stockholm without a record deal. Her philosophy on rejection? “Screw them.” Back home, her four-track demo landed in the hands of Bjorn Yttling (the bass guitarist filling in the Peter-Bjorn-John sandwich). After some harassment on Li’s part, 21st century-style -- “I just kept e-mailing him,” she says -- the two collaborated on what was to become Youth Novels, her electro ode to young heartbreak.

When her current set of gigs comes to a close, Li -- a daughter of artists, who spent her formative years shuttling between Portugal, Nepal and India -- will be forced to settle down. Still, she finds herself torn between town and country. “I’m a bipolar city girl. My mind is in New York, but I would love to live in Argentina, drink red wine and write poetry no one understands."