"I've got some news for you/Fembots have feelings too." So opens Robyn's third album of 2010, a compilation of 10 of the best tracks from the two Body Talk mini-albums, alongside five new songs. The lyric sums up Robyn perfectly: a mainstream pop star with attitude, unafraid to promote her sexuality on her own terms.
While guitar bands are praised for daring to use synths in their music, Robyn trades rhymes with Snoop Dogg on the frantic U Should Know Better, makes bass-heavy doom-pop with Röyksopp in None of Dem and, with Dancing On My Own, creates one of the best pop singles of the last 20 years.
But Body Talk isn't just sleek, forward-thinking electro-pop. It's also imbued with emotion and soul. Musically, the pace rarely slackens, whereas lyrically Body Talk conerns relationship breakups and/or defiance in the face of heartache. These are songs to dance to with tears streaming down your cheeks. It's not, however, an album mired by a sense of victimhood, with Robyn both perpetrator and casualty; the Max Martin-produced Time Machine is a lengthy apology to a jilted ex, Love Kills a lengthy warning.
There's an economy on Body Talk that makes the emotional punch all the more powerful. Dancing On My Own doesn't waste a second, its metronomic beat the epitome of minimalism, while Hang With Me aims to capture the essence of a relationship in a single line: "I know what's on your mind, there will be time for that too, if you hang with me."
Rather than spending ages in the studio, Robyn recorded Body Talk in short bursts, sending tracks to her label as and when they were finished. Commercially, it's an experimental approach that has yet to fully pay off – only Body Talk Part 2 charted in the UK top 40 – but creatively it's a testament to the fact that pop music still has the ability to surprise. As Robyn says: "The whole industry knows not to fuck with me."
