If I can sell out once and only once, it will be by writing this post. Sure, you could argue that Pitchfork made it perfectly acceptable for the hipster crowd to appreciate Robyn‘s heartbreak club pop and that RA will eventually be catching on, but writing about how great her show was when my next post will most likely be recommending something house or Hotflush, Robyn seems slightly off.
On the other hand, I could write a lengthy post about how she achieves much of what I imagine many underground electronic producers strive for. She has a strong catalogue of songs that resonates perfectly with a tent of 17,000, delivers her lyrics on top of a band that plays tighter than tight, and is able to control a party like few others. I’m not saying that Robyn should be placed next to Ricardo. Just that her music was perfect for that crowd in that exact situation.
Seeing her deliver an encore while being close to tears in 2008 still stands as a major concert experience for me, so Saturday’s concert was mainly a question of how well her performance would stack up against her Cosmopol venture. She did well. If house music is indeed about suffering, Robyn has found the right recipe to mix sing along with solid grooves. She will probably not fit in your cutting edge dj set, but lean back for a minute or go see her live, and you’ll learn that pop is far from dead and that it may even be cooler than you think.
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