ALBUM REVIEW: Robyn's "Body Talk Pt. 1"

I normally love Swedish electropop singer Robyn, so I cut her a lot of slack—the amount of slack we cut Lady Gaga, M.I.A., and every other peculiar artist who steps outside the studio box. I do that because I appreciate being surprised. I'm only 24, but I already feel like history is repeating itself music-wise, especially after I heard that Perez Hilton is working with Simon Cowell to bring back the boy band, which really just sounds like a ploy for him to have access to desperate, hot guys.

The 31-year-old Swede hasn't released an album in five years. Since she's not in her 20s anymore, I expected some kind of mature transformation. Luckily, she hasn't resorted to a Christina-Aguilera-type lobotomy. Instead, she's planning on releasing not one, not two, but three volumes of Body Talk throughout the year. The first volume has 8 tracks, most of which are heartbreaking dance songs about breaking up, feeling smothered, and life's lessons:

"Fembot"
She always has the funniest lines ("I got a lotta automatic booty applications") and she manages to make a sad topic danceable.


"Dancing On My Own"
This is like a self-esteem boost for club-hopping party girls who spot their exes with another girl on the dance floor. Hollywood starlets and "The Hills" girls would have this stuck on replay.


I also like "Don't Fucking Tell Me What to Do," because of it's poetic, spoken-word, repetitive structure, but I don't think I could just listen to it randomly on the way to work or even at a club. It just gets annoying after a while. Although if you're pissed, it might be gratifying to vent by repeating the chorus. "Cry When You Get Older" grows on you. You kinda get addicted to the synth beat. Wasn't really feeling her reggae tangent "Dancehall Queen." What one might call a traditional reggae melody, I call generic. That's the problem with being original, you can't ever stray towards the norm. I did, however, like that she did a cover of a traditional Swedish folk song "Jag vet en dejlig Rosa." It's slightly creepy, like something you'd hear in Pan's Labyrinth or during a slowed-down battle scene in Hellboy, but still very sweet. Can't wait to hear the next two volumes, which will be out in September.