NPR recently welcomed Swedish pop star Robyn to their office for a Tiny Desk Concert. She sings four songs, including one of her first hits, Show Me Love.
Every choice here is a tender one, down to the teardrop glued to her cheek. Every move is confident, yet comes from a place of vulnerability. Most of these arrangements play up the quiet desperation in her outsized songs, though on “Ever Again,” Robyn pulls off a magic trick by inviting us into the conversation, opening a broken heart to defiant resilience. “Light Up,” in particular, sounds revelatory, a glitchy synth banger reborn as a piano ballad. “I was looking at you like a mirror,” she sings with a catch in her throat, like an old memory surfacing for a split second, as she builds to a moment of emotional release.
Robyn was 16 years old when “Show Me Love” appeared on her debut album, Robyn Is Here. “For me, this is where it all started, in a way,” she tells the audience, understating the foundational impact the hit would have on late-’90s pop. Behind the Desk, its lite new jack swing slows to something more spacious and reflective, if no less flirtatious. She lets the music age with her.
This 2013 Kings of Leon cover of Robyn’s Dancing on My Own inspired Callum Scott to sing Dancing on My Own for his audition for Britain’s Got Talent, which eventually lead to Scott’s version of the song hitting #2 on the UK charts in 2016 and becoming the #1 download in the UK that summer. The original version topped out at 8.
Here’s the original.
Here’s a country version.
Here’s a punk cover validating my theory stating pop songs usually sound good as punk songs.
Anyway, I was thinking about this because a few years ago I made a playlist for the kids of all the covers of Dancing on My Own I could find and there were 56 back then. Today I added all the ones which were added to Apple Music in the last few years and now there are 91 total on the list, though 2 or 3 are remixes.
It’s been eight years since Robyn’s last release, which seems like a Donna Tartt-esque wait in the pop music world. Her new album, Honey, is finally out tomorrow. She’s endured a breakup, a reconciliation, and the death of her longtime collaborator and producer, Christian Falk. Exploration of grief and loss are not the most uplifting themes in dance music, but Robyn has a depth beyond most pop stars.
What’s more interesting is seeing Robyn’s relationship to a mind/body connection play out. She got into psychoanalysis, which she calls “un-rigid and experimental” and “an inspiring, amazing place.” Equally important, she danced throughout the making of the album, getting lost in hypnotic rhythms, which in itself is a form of deep therapy.
Missing U is a solid Robyn dance track.
I hope this release means she and her platforms will soon be back on SNL.
And if you happen to be in Stockholm, she’s playing a “secret” gig on Saturday.
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