“You cannot stop this. You cannot escape it and you cannot turn it off. So, I’d appreciate your kind consideration in this matter, Sir or Mam, would you please turn it the FUCK UP. I present to you: the queen of queen bees, phoenix from the ashes risen. World record holder with a score of 2 GAZILLION in Tetris, two time recipient of the Nobel prize for Super-Foxiest female EVER, and wartime consigliore to the Costa Nostra. She’s the founder and CEO of Konichiwa Records. The most decorated professional on the streets, with a perfect track record since kindergarten when she used to whup schoolboy ass. In this world of tension, pressure and pain, she’s known for her wisdom, compassion and relentless determination in the quest to GET PAID.”
She is Robyn. The most killingest pop star on the planet. A pint-sized atom bomb dosed to the tits on electric and dispensing wisdom in three-minute modernist pop bulletins on the post-adolescent condition. ‘Robyn’ is also a collection of ultra-concise pop moments – that rarest of things, a classic pop album. It’s a sad-eyed, super-strong battery of nuclear-powered pop. It’s the best weapon she’s got. Robin Miriam Carlsson was born in Stockholm in 1979. She spent the first seven years of her life touring with her director father and actress mother in their Constructivist-inspired theatre company. At the age of 13 she was discovered by Swedish pop singer Meja when singing a sad, self-written song about her parents’ divorce in a school workshop and was immediately signed to BMG. A debut album of R&B-influenced pop in 1995 saw her paired with future Britney-hitwrangler Max Martin, and the global success of the sweet, soulful single ‘Show Me Love’ in 1997 cemented Robyn as an international pop star. Shellshocked by the lack of artistic control offered by her label, however, Robyn migrated to Jive records for her third album, but felt disillusioned by their attempt to ship her to America to be shoehorned into the pre-fabricated Xtina template that was depressingly omnipotent in 2002. In 2003, Robyn returned home, defeated, to Stockholm. Upon returning, she stumbled across a new CD by a mysterious local brother-sister duo. The CD, titled ‘Deep Cuts’, was a passionate, hallucinatory reading of pop music carved from geometric blocks of pure texture. Karin Dreijer Andersson and Olof Dreijer called themselves The Knife, and with ‘Deep Cuts’ they had sketched a blueprint for a kind of abstract future pop. Energised by the potential atom-splitting that could occur if she harnessed her own piercingly honest pop to The Knife’s uncompromising, peculiarly Swedish energy source, Robyn approached Karin and Olof to work on a potential single. The result was ‘Who’s That Girl’ – unquestionably one of the best pop singles of the past five years. Strapping herself into the very heart of The Knife’s towering, architectural synthpop – a shifting, interlocking grid of colour and beats, hard enough to break your fists on – Robyn emptied all of her frustration, insecurity and desperation. The lyrics, specifically, railed against her contractual purgatory, but ‘Who’s That Girl’s loaded despair resonates powerfully with anyone – any girl – left beaten by the capriciousness of gender or image politics. In the song, Robyn soars. Her anger is rocket fuel for the titanium-strong music which encases her, projects her, makes her indestructible. Although Robyn had always written songs, this stark piece of brutalist pop should be considered The First Robyn Song. Unbelievably, her label hated it. Exasperated to the point of resignation, Robyn looked to how her new comrades Karin and Olof self-financed and released their work. In a completely unprecedented move for a mainstream pop artist, Robyn bought herself off her label. Six months later, Robyn was CEO and founder of Konichiwa Records. In her back pocket she had ‘Who’s That Girl’, the opening song for a new album that would be her story. She also had a new sidekick. Klas Åhlund is the main man behind Teddybears, Stockholm’s amazing bricolage pop group who have variously been fronted by Annie and Neneh Cherry, Iggy Pop and Mad Cobra. ‘Robyn’, in some ways, is emblematic of a move towards a more autonomous pop industry, with artists working creatively in egalitarian partnerships rather than at the behest of a major corporation. Really though, what ‘Robyn’ represents is the story of one ass-kicking little blonde woman who blasted through the industry bullshit and made a startling, profound, honest pop music all of her own. It is music with one message. Be your own star.
Pictures
Copyright © 2007 ModularPeople | www.modularpeople.com |
