The first time I ever heard “Dancing On My Own” was during the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards. Robyn had been hired as a house artist, which meant she was allotted a fraction of screen time in between commercial breaks as sort of an intermission entertainer for those in attendance. Even now, the only evidence of this performance exists in a few blurry fan-uploaded videos on YouTube.
“I’m in the corner / Watching you kiss her,” she pleaded to the crowd, introducing the world to what might just be one of the greatest choruses ever written. The song was a career-best for the seasoned performer and a most-promising taste of her latest era, one that would ultimately deliver one of the most important records of the decade.
Robyn has always been an industry anomaly. Originally marketed as a teen-act in the late ’90s, the Swedish artist had a few successful singles, most notably “Show Me Love” (not to be confused with the classic house single of the same title by Robin S) in 1997. But when she wanted to move beyond her bubblegum-image, various conflicts arose from her management and record label — her US label asked her to remove two tracks about her abortion from her upcoming record — and she all but disappeared.
Following a brief hiatus and string of albums that received little attention outside her native Sweden, she launched her own record label and returned with a self-titled album replete with the fun and quirky electropop songs she would later become known for. It was an emancipation of sorts that laid the groundwork for her seventh album, now widely regarded as her magnum opus.
Body Talk is a powerful record both in its scope and quality; pop music of the highest caliber. Originally released as two mini concept albums, the compilation of both parts, plus a few new tracks, culminated in one of the best records of the decade, if not all time. The two-part delivery was an early example of the alternative album release that would become the new normal, before traditional LPs were eclipsed by buzzy mixtapes, surprise drops, high-production visual albums, and one-off singles. Beyond the experimental format, the strength of the album was successful in challenging the critical merit of pop music at large: Not only could the genre be commercially valuable, but it could be good, like, really good. Maybe even brilliant.
This was established foremost by the album’s centerpiece, the aforementioned near-perfect power ballad “Dancing On My Own.” The structure of the song is simple: throbbing synths and glittering melodies accompany lyrics that describe the universal pain of seeing a former flame with someone else. Yet despite its near-unanimous acclaim, it somehow remains a fairly fringe track to the general (read: straight) public. Today, the official music video counts just 60 million views since its 2010 release, but the Calum Scott cover, released in 2016, has over 400 million views. (The heteropatriarchy strikes again.)
The rest of the album manages to match the momentum of the monumental lead single, each song flickering with its own unique charm. “Call Your Girlfriend” tells the story of a love triangle from the perspective of the other woman, instructing the unfaithful partner how to confess while inflicting minimal emotional damage — “And you let her down easy.” (There’s even a fan theory that this song and “Dancing” were written about the same night which is especially juicy.) “Fembot,” a cheeky retro-track, reveals that beneath her veneer of glossy synths and polished pop sheen lies an actual human being while “Indestructible” confidently proclaims that there is a certain power in vulnerability. And “Hang With Me” sparkles and shimmers like a disco ball as Robyn takes you under her wing in one of the most tender pop songs in recent memory. It’s moments like these that make you understand why stans refer to their faves as “Mom.”
The record managed to condense over a decade’s worth of electronic influences while simultaneously creating something entirely fresh that set a new standard for the next decade of pop. But what makes Robyn’s songcraft so effective is her preternatural talent of marrying moments of fragility with strength. It’s this intimacy that allows her to cultivate a special relationship with her audience that both sets her apart from and inspires her contemporaries. Artists known for challenging pop conventions, like Charli XCX, Troye Sivan, Rina Sawayama, and Caroline Polachek, are all disciples of Robyn’s dancefloor gospel.
Throughout history, dance and heartbreak have gone hand-in-hand. Sad bangers have been a musical trope since the disco heyday of the ’70s when ABBA amassed a catalog of hits that sounded shiny and upbeat but were devastating beneath the surface. And in 2020, a year defined by global crisis, sad bangers are all the more relevant.
Speaking of this resurgence, David Levesley writes “A sad banger must do two things in synchrony: it must make you dance, but it must also fundamentally speak to a crucial hole in our hearts,” he says. This is the fundamental essence of Body Talk — Robyn is a master of amplifying simple feelings to gigantic proportions while still preserving their integrity to create a lifetime record. “Sad bangers are for everyone, but for some people they are loaded with real pathos,” he says.
It’s this sentiment that explains why Body Talk continues to resonate with listeners and casts a shadow over each sad banger released in its wake. Ahead of the album’s ten-year anniversary, Robyn was awarded the NME Award for Songwriter of the Decade, despite only releasing two major albums. (In 2018, her long-awaited follow-up Honey was released to similar acclaim.) It’s easy to see why — no artist is better at balancing heartbreak with ecstasy to create pure and timeless dance euphoria. She understands the sanctuary that pop music can provide on the refuge of the dancefloor, and gifted us with the perfect soundtrack for those cathartic nights when you just wanna lose yourself, feel the music, and let your body talk.
