So last week I complained that the Random iTunes Fairy has been serving up too much Bob Dylan. And she responds by dropping the second Robyn track in three weeks.
I’m not sure what to make of that, but somehow I think I’m being taunted. Damn you, Steve Jobs!
Like Pink, featured a week ago, Robyn is an unlikely occupant of my music collection. Or maybe I have a previously unrealized penchant for R&B/pop singers with super-short white-blonde hair.
The artist Robyn most reminds me of, based on the one album and one EP of hers I own, is Prince. She has a similar vocal style (evident on this track) and employs a similar fusion of funk and pop balladry. And as with Prince, I find a little of Robyn goes a long way.
Any reader of Entertainment Weekly has probably noticed the crush that publication has on Robyn. The degree to which they evangelize for her is almost comical.
Regardless of my opinion of the pixie-like Swedish performer, I love to see that kind of promotion of an underdog. Hell, I’m the guy who’s in the midst of Ron Sexsmith Weekends on this blog. When you love something, the desire to shout about it from the rooftops is a strong one.
Personally, I think EW piles it on a but too thick when it comes to Robyn. She’s talented, no doubt, but they risk overpraising her to the point that all she can do is disappoint. And that’s not doing her any favors.
Swedish oddball Robyn writes and records the sort of music I instinctively reject — dance, techno, club stuff — but for some reason I like what I hear from her.
Her self-titled 2005 album (actually her fourth record, released 11 years after her debut) is a marvelous collection with echoes of Prince and Cyndi Lauper. On it she shows a penchant for techno-funk jams and gentle ballads alike and has the sense of humor to have her DJ introduce her as being “listed in section 202 of the United Nations Security Act of 1979 as being too hot to wear tight sweaters in international airspace.”
Here’s an album I haven’t thought much about since I bought it a couple of years ago. But like many of my “forgotten” CDs, it’s a consistently rewarding listen.
Robyn is a Swedish performer who had some success internationally in the late 90s as a teenager. She fell off the map after that early success and eventually made her comeback in 2005 by forming her own label and releasing a self-titled album. The new material had an electro-pop and hip hop feel to it and was reportedly influenced by Madonna’s later work. It received a U.S. release in 2008, which is when it came to my attention.
Meet Me In Montauk 