- It's hard to dislike Robyn. She's part of a small club of former R&B/mainstream dance starlettes who ditched the industry to do things their own way. She even started her own label to make sure no one would tell her what to do ever again. In many ways, her perkiness is quite similar to fellow Scandinavian electro-pop heroine Annie except with a tad less sass and (probably) more money. After a 2005 eponymous album that reintroduced herself to the world, and after collaborating with everyone from Royksopp and Teddybears to Snoop Dogg and Kelis, Robyn is back with Body Talk, the first album of a three-part series.
It opens up with "Don't Fucking Tell Me What to Do" and "Fembot," two pieces of dystopian pop with a slightly abrasive edge. From the repetitive, almost tedious lyrics of the former to the harsher synth lines of the latter, there is something strangely cold about them—as if Robyn was trying a bit too hard to animate said fembot. It's an introduction which is all the more puzzling when you listen to the two straightforwardly heartfelt ballads that close Body Talk ("Hang With Me" and "Jag Vet En Dejlig Rosa"): the brusque passage from one Robyn to the other suggests an artist not fully at ease yet with her schizophrenic pop persona.
Thankfully, what's in the middle is much more satisfying. "Dancing on My Own" is, by far, the best thing Robyn has ever done in its squashing of bittersweet languishing love and the cathartic function of dancing to a disco-pop beat. "Dancehall Queen," produced with Diplo, has an immediate air of reggae-lite joviality, while the Royksopp-helped "None of Them" comes across as a darker companion to last year's "The Girl and the Robot." That said, just three truly distinctive tracks out of a 30-minute long album is stretching things a little thin, isn't it? With any luck, the forthcoming parts of the series will help put everything in perspective. For now, Body Talk Pt. One is a lukewarm comeback.
Tracklist01. Don't Fucking Tell Me What to Do
02. Fembot
03. Dancing On My Own
04. Cry When You Get Older
05. Dance Hall Queen
06. None of Dem
07. Hang with Me (acoustic)
08. Jag Vet En Dejlig Rosa