Tove Styrke’s fifth album, I thought this story wasn’t about me, is designed as a continuous journey through one night, from dusk to dawn. Instead of a collection of songs meant to stand alone, the album is created to be heard as a whole: a cinematic alt-pop narrative whose mood changes as the night unfolds. Styrke has described the project as her most ambitious to date and as her first album since HARD (2022).
The album began taking shape in early 2024, during the brief moments Styrke found between new parenthood, a role in David Bowie’s musical Lazarus in Stockholm, and studies in biodynamic farming. She wrote and sketched on the rooftop terrace of her apartment building. The initial work was explorative—ideas, fragments, short poems, and single words—before the larger vision for the album emerged.
At the emotional center of the album is a striving to understand oneself and one’s place in the world. Styrke describes the process not only as an attempt to repair what is broken, but also as a way of accepting life’s cracks. The Japanese art of kintsugi, where broken ceramics are repaired so the cracks remain visible, serves as an apt parallel: the album’s perspective views imperfection as part of life’s design, rather than something to be hidden.
An analog sound in a connected world
Styrke co-produced the record with a small team: producer and songwriter Magnus Larsson, drummer and producer Joel Kiviaho, and songwriter Linnéa Martinsson, known as Lune. The music was recorded live and analog, without samples. Vintage synths from the 1970s and 1980s are blended with live drums and electric bass. This gives the arrangements a tactile feel while grounding the sound in contemporary alt-pop.
The mentioned influences range from Kraftwerk and Laurie Anderson to Boards of Canada, Suicide, LCD Soundsystem and Jon Hopkins, as well as Adrianne Lenker and Alex Cameron. The breadth helps to explain the album’s mix of electronic textures, rhythmic momentum, and more intimate songwriting. Filmmaker David Lynch’s view of creativity has influenced the project’s cinematic feel, while the live-based recording approach gives the atmosphere a physical, performed character.
“Prayer,” the album’s opening track and first single, begins the journey with a dance song of about five and a half minutes. Styrke has described it as filled with hope and anticipation, like a sunset over a city full of possibilities. The song’s placement at the start is central to the album’s design: it serves as an entry into the story, rather than a standalone statement beside it.
“Look at me,” the album’s focus track, turns its gaze to the charged relationship between visibility and privacy in digital life. The song explores the desire to be noticed in parallel with resistance to being watched, in a culture where attention can feel like proof of existence. Layers of synths frame a softly delivered vocal and place personal longing in a wider reflection on digital metrics of recognition.
The video for “Look at me,” directed by Natalie Olenheim Boija, takes its choreography from statues. The visual reference brings together contrasts that also recur in the song: hardness and softness, the living and the still, permanence and the passage of time.
The album’s 16 tracks begin with “Intro,” followed by “Prayer,” “Song and dance man,” “Let’s go camping,” and “Look at me.” Among the later titles are “Burial,” “04:39,” “Me/You (always and forever),” “Sunflower,” “Sitting by the fire,” and “Save me.” Heard in sequence, the track order supports the record’s intended movement through a single night.
Alongside her solo career, Styrke has formed the Swedish-language political prog band Året Var together with her partner Sanna Sikborn Erixon. Her broader career includes over a billion streams for her catalog, with songs like “Say My Name,” “Borderline,” and “Show Me Love,” as well as collaborations with Clean Bandit, RITUAL, ALMA, and Cosmo’s Midnight. I thought this story wasn’t about me brings together these various experiences in a distinctly introspective project, where an expansive sound carries a story of self-understanding and acceptance.
