Robyn, Body Talk Pt. 1

By the time you get to “None of Dem” on Robyn’s album Body Talk Pt. 1, a bass-loaded, dubstep-lite (which is an affixation with roughly the same metaphysical heft as a “small tank”) kind of pissed-off, drug-addled hyphenation-inducing song for that time that’s too early to be morning but too late to be night, you are sublimely ready for the not-quite blissed-out extrospection (aka dancing) it provides for. A video for the track has Robyn in a sweatshirt and knit hat in a darkened room, alone and dancing and seriously feeling the music, man. That it is her music she’s feeling seems to make no difference; she’s just as in thrall to it as you are, or will be, if you have not yet had the chance to listen to this sensationally well-constructed album.

Body Talk Pt. 1 is full of songs you like, then love, then really love, and then normally would get tired of and move on, but I’ve been rocking out to “Dancing on My Own,” that exuberant paean to being alone (if not quite to loneliness) at a very high rate for weeks now, and I want to keep doing it. That song is unquestionably the album’s high peak, for its sheer catchiness and singability (“I’m not the giiiiiiiiiirl you’re taaaking home, oooo oooooo”) and the way it revels in something a little stronger than melancholy, makes it desirable and unstoppable and an expression of whatever it is that substitutes for primal joy nowadays. There aren’t too many songs that give explicit license to back away from others that also offer this exuberant validation, to retreat to the corner (which is what you really wanted to do anyway) and be satisfyingly, gloriously emotional in time with the beat. In a word, it’s great.

It’s almost for the best that nothing else on the album reaches the same peak, because then Robyn gets to have that song. But nearly every track on the album is solidly written and even better produced, so that there’s a sense of balance maintained consistently, even rigorously, both both overall and within each song. “Fembot” has her trying on the character of, well, a fembot, to deliciously clever effect (as in, “automatic booty applications / got a CPU maxed-out sensation.” Sweet.). This song does well to show why she stands out from the crowd particularly now, as material that could have easily been pushed to extremes of ridiculousness by her contemporaries here instead remains very grounded. It’s safe to say although her music rises very high indeed, it is built firmly on the ground.

The video that sets her as a fan to her own music has the right of it, actually; this is relatable music for once, tracks that push up from our level rather than sound from on high. Robyn’s syllables are anything but nonsense, and her music makes sense, always. The overwhelmingly positive critical reception to both the album and her as a star is no doubt built on this aspect of her music and performance, its intelligence and honesty; and if she initially comes across as maybe just the tiniest bit blank, as a little less than a truly great singer, the minor quips are quickly discarded as overly hasty judgments about someone who is now a good friend. Flash and fire and fierceness are great from afar, but up close and personal with music wrapping around you in the corner, you’d rather have honesty, and feeling too. Her music is sustainable in a way that elides most pop.

The coda of the album — the straight-up ballad and now soon-to-be dancefloor hit “Hang With Me” and the classic Sinatra tune “Jag Vet En Dejlig Rosa” — is understandable, a respectable way to bow out and set the stage for Body Talk, Pt. 2. If “Hang With Me” is just a touch saccharine, with songwriting just a shade weaker than its minimalist arrangement allows for, it is notable only to appreciate that her songs work so well because of the greatly effective context they are in. And though it would be nice to be able to point to “Jag Vet Swedish” as lovely, it doesn’t really matter, and if anybody makes it through more than a third of that song without listening to “Dancing on My Own” again instead (“giiiiiiiirl”) I would be surprised.

The music is better to listen to than to think about, which is really just a way of saying that this is music that is meant to be music. Her music doesn’t make you feel morally compromised when you listen to it, which is all too often the case with pop. If it’s not quite deep either, that’s probably for the best, so that you can stay giddy and sweaty while still feeling, hard, if you want to. But only if you want to. It’s not going to force you there.

She’s somebody that you like if you give her a breath of a chance. She is somebody relatable. She is catchy and durable. Normally, this would be the point where one would work in a stinger, a shot of critical pithiness to dilute the compliments and strengthen the critique. But that would be cheap, and furthermore, unnecessary. She doesn’t pretend to be what she is not, which is saying something more than it seems. It would also be tempting to do a blow-by-blow comparison with other pop stars of the past few moments (and I will now mention a few in order to get more search engine hits: Beyonce, GaGa, Kesha, Katy Perry, Rihanna. Inception, Twilight, Edward, Jacob), but it is more tempting to let her stand — or dance, perhaps — on her own.