Modern Anthem 009: Charting The Songs We Love So Well | Pocketmags.com

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Modern Anthem 009: Charting The Songs We Love So Well

Artists often take time to release new music but some may feel like Swedish icon Robyn is taking longer than most. Beloved for her melodies, cutting-edge style and electric live performances, she’s kept fans interested with collaborations and singles over the last few years, but with no word of a new album. At the start of June, Robyn posted a tweet marking an important anniversary: eight years since the release of her single ‘Dancing On My Own’. With its thumping electro production and heartfelt lyrics, it was everything fans loved about Robyn’s music distilled into one perfect pop package.

Feature: Music Robyn – Reinvention – Calum Scott

By 2010 Robyn had successfully re-invented herself as a new kind of star, one who made great music but also one who worked in the music business on her own terms. In late ’90s she had been snapped up by RCA records who spotted her teen-pop potential. Her debut album Robyn Is Here, produced by Max Martin, spawned hit singles in Sweden and brought her worldwide notice, thanks to the single ‘Show Me Love’. Two more albums followed but were only released in Sweden and Japan as Robyn struggled with record label politics.

In 2005 she left the major labels and set up her own: Konnichwa Records. She released her self-titled fourth album in Sweden, topping the charts there. The album was picked up for international release in 2007 and she enjoyed a number one on the UK singles chart thanks to ‘With Every Heartbeat’, a mournful club track produced by fellow Swede, Kleerup.

After struggling in the system it made sense Robyn would attempt a new way to deliver music for her follow-up. Opting to release ‘mini albums’ instead of one full-length release, she began the Body Talk project in 2010 with Body Talk Part 1. The lead single ‘Dancing On My Own’ showed a pop performer who had figured out her strengths and sound.

“ If you’re happy or unhappy, sad or in love – whatever it is, it tends to come out when you go out.

Taking cues from the emotionally driven ‘With Every Heartbeat’, ‘Dancing On My Own’ plays with a familiar setting for LGBT+ people: the dancefloor. Over a juddering club beat she spins a story of seeing someone you’re in love with kiss someone else. It’s a universal story that’s rare in pop music.

The lyrics were inspired by Robyn’s touring life and time in clubs, watching the way people danced. Speaking to Pitchfork in 2010 she said, “it became impossible to not use that lyric – ‘dancing on my own’ – because it’s such a beautiful picture. People have so many expectations when they go out, so many wishes about what their night is going to be.” She added that she was “into the empowerment of going out, because it’s always been the place where I could be myself and get inspired. Even if I’m sad, dancing is a way to let stuff out.”

For Robyn, ‘Dancing On My Own’ was about tapping into primal and almost childlike impulses, ones that largely emerge in the club world. Speaking to Dummy magazine in 2010 she noted that clubs are “a grown-up playground where people just let everything hang out and get stupid drunk. It’s where you let your emotions out if you’re happy or unhappy, sad or in love – whatever it is, it tends to come out when you go out. I think it’s an important place for our generation; it has a role in our everyday lives that you could almost compare to a church or something that has a bigger meaning to people.”

If clubs are churches for a generation of LGBT+ people, then ‘Dancing On My Own’ could certainly take its place as a hymn. It’s a song that urges you on to the dancefloor, acknowledges the reasons you’re there, and points out that the person you’re obsessed with meeting may not even know you’re alive. For a community so used to be ignored by the mainstream, clubs often feel like a chance to be seen. ‘Dancing On My’ Own acknowledges the agony and the ecstasy of that contrast.

Despite its floor-filler status, ‘Dancing On My Own’ experienced limited chart success. It topped the Swedish charts and reached number eight in the UK, but stalled elsewhere. Then, in 2015, an unexpected cover version gave the song a new lease of life. Calum Scott auditioned with an acoustic adaptation of the track on Britain’s Got Talent and a single release in 2016 of the cover ended up becoming a slow-burn chart smash, peaking at number four in Ireland and number two in the UK and landing over 280 million streams on Spotify. It would be easy to be cynical about the cover, an acoustic take designed for a pop landscape dominated by the likes of Ed Sheeran. But Scott’s voice has undeniable power and when he came out as gay in 2016 he spoke about how the song allowed him to accept his sexuality, even as he struggled with it.

Speaking to Billboard in 2017, Scott said: “I purposefully didn’t change the words, so it reads, “I’m in the corner watching you kiss her,” and it’s from a guy’s perspective. I did that because that’s what I was going through and it related to me.” Telling the magazine a story about an American fan who sent him a letter about the song helping him accept his sexuality, Scott added: “It’s kind of grown a whole new dimension to the song. I’ve had so many people that have come to me [about it]”.

Though the mainstream appeal of Scott’s version is undeniable, the one that will fill dancefloors and strike a chord for LGBT+ fans is still the original. Emotive, catchy and speaking to a universal experience, ‘Dancing On My Own’ will forever be a queer anthem, no matter how long Robyn takes with a follow-up.

The Verdict

Lykke Li’s New Sound

In the ten years since her debut album Youth Novels, Sweden’s Lykke Li has carved out a commendable niche as a purveyor of a particularly brooding indie-pop that feels familiar and emotive and yet packed with surprises. Aside from the European chart success of the Magician’s propulsive remix of ‘I Follow Rivers’, Li has rarely bothered to pander to chart whims.

On fourth album so sad so sexy (the album embraces a very Instagram-friendly lower case for the title and tracklist) she reemerges on a new record label and with a new feel to her sound. Backed with production from the likes of her husband, Jeff Bhaskar, a Grammy winning producer who’s worked with Lana Del Rey and Kanye amongst others, and super-producer Malay, there’s an R’n’B flavour to the proceedings.

Thankfully much of Lykke Li’s singular charm is intact and the result is an album that feels like both a stellar refresh and a confirmation of her talent. ‘sex money feelings die’ and the title track could almost be tongue-in-cheek, were it not for that unmistakeable melancholy dotted throughout, while the closing track ‘utopia’ sums up the wistful and bruised tone that makes this such an emotionally charged effort. A new beginning for Lykke Li perhaps, but the music is as winning as ever.

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