Robyn

Savvy pop fans have been pumping Robyn's self-titled album for years, even though it's just now [in late April 2008] finally seeing a proper U.S. release. The collection has held up very well; anyone approaching it freshly will be just as apt to be swept away as the people who discovered it upon its release in her native Sweden in 2005. Blending dance, disco, bubblegum, hip-hop and just about every other genre apt to be played at a club or house party, Robyn, seems likely to wind up as one of the enduring pop albums of the decade—a prediction that isn't so bold given how it's held up over these past several years.

There are a few slight missteps (i.e. "Robotboy"), and the ballads are heartfelt but forgettable by comparison to the sugar rush that surrounds them. But there's much less filler than typical for pop albums (or any albums). Robyn offers a slew of tracks that feel like the big hit, each with its own flavor. There's the straightforward, lightly orchestral "Be Mine!", the playfully brash and bawdy hip-hop, one-two punch of "Konichiwa Bitches" and "Cobrastyle" (the latter a Teddybears cover), and the brilliant electro-pop of "Who's That Girl?", a collaboration with indie favorites (and fellow Swedes) The Knife. And those still may not be the best tracks on the album. Over bleating, percussive synth-pop, she coos sweet nothings to a good-for-nothing on "Bum Like You." But she's hardly a softie or pushover; more typical is the chilled-out grind of "Handle Me," in which she dismisses a potential suitor as a bootlicking Nazi. Disappointed again by romance gone sour on the R&B-styled "Should Have Known," Robyn sums up the situation (repeatedly) with words that would make American divas blush: "I should have seen it coming / I should have fucking known."

Pop stars aren't supposed to talk like that, of course—and they probably aren't supposed to bust into boastful raps and they definitely, aren't supposed to work with weirdos like The Knife; the latter was a key factor in Robyn's defection from the majors and subsequent founding of her own label. This is the same Robyn, after all, who had a brief presence on the U.S. charts in the late '90s with the catchy but not exactly progressive "Show Me Love." Hopefully her independent streak—so abundantly rewarding on Robyn—will prove contagious to other pop princesses.

—Adam McKibbin
05.12.08

"I present to you/unleashed in the east/best dressed in the west/sorted in the north/without a doubt in the south/the queen of queen bees," intones the booming voice on Robyn's opening track "Curriculum Vitae." It's not bragging if you can back it up, and Robyn does just that, channeling all the frustration of her creative differences with her previous labels into a freewheeling, accomplished pop album that is so fresh that it could pass for a debut -- and, as the first release for her own label, Konichiwa Records, it is a debut of sorts. Robyn feels like she crammed everything she couldn't do before into a space that can barely contain it, starting with "Konichiwa Bitches," a sassy hip-pop manifesto with a title that could very well have been the first thing she said to her old bosses once she got her own label set up. On this song and the rest of the album, Robyn sounds equally empowered and irresistible, and doesn't hesitate to tell off labels, trifling boys, or anyone else who stands in the way of what she wants. She doesn't mince words on "Handle Me," but she purrs "you're a selfish, narcissistic, psycho-freakin', boot-lickin' creep" so sweetly that it stings even more. And even on the songs where she isn't so strong, like "Bum Like You" and "I Should Have Known"'s catchy recriminations, she's never the less than self-aware. She has a few words for the ladies as well: the cautionary tale "Crash and Burn Girl" is one of the album's funkiest tracks. "Who's That Girl," the song that her old label didn't want to release, and sparked her emancipation from them, is also here, and its distinctive skipping, tropics-go-Nordic rhythms and aggressively buzzy synths -- courtesy of the Knife -- sound great, but it isn't even the best song here. That honor goes to one of two songs that really hit home that true independence can be the hardest thing. "Be Mine!" nails the complicated, sad-yet-liberated feelings surrounding an impossible relationship, celebrating "the sweet pain of watching your back as you walk away" as it propels itself on a buoyant rhythm. "With Every Heartbeat," the epic, Kleerup-produced breakup song that was Robyn's breakthrough single in the U.K., pushes her forward on percolating, escalating synths and strings until it peaks with the chorus echoing all around her. Not every independent moment on Robyn is so lonely, however. The way the album moves from whimsical tracks like the Teddybears cover "Cobrastyle" or "Robotboy" to subtle ballads like "Eclipse" and "Anytime Like You" just emphasize that this album is a space for expression for, and by Robyn. And like any self-titled album should, Robyn defines what she's all about. Even if it took a few years to put together the label and album (and a few more to get it released everywhere), this is the pop tour de force that Robyn has always had in her. [The 2008 version was released with a bonus track.] ~ Heather Phares, All Music Guide