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 ROCKIN' ROBYN
Sweden's Hottest Female Export Shows Us Love
This month, the self-titled album by Robin Miriam Carlsson—who professionally simply goes by Robyn—finally sees the light of day in the States. It’s a set chock-full of pop songs with attitude—from the mournful electro swelter of international hit “With Every Heartbeat” to the tell-off slow groove of “Handle Me” and declaration of female independence in “Who’s That Girl.” And thankfully, in a month that also boasts new offerings from tried and true divas Madonna and Mariah Carey, Robyn provides a welcome, much-needed alternative.
“I’m proud of the fact that I’m being different,” states Robyn on the phone from her home in Stockholm, “but I still think that I do pop music, and that’s something I’m proud of as well.”
Now, sure, the 28-year-old singer is a Swede sensation, thanks to a solid outpouring of love from blogs and music sites for the past couple of years. But some of her newfound fans may not be aware—or even be old enough to actually remember—that Robyn was originally part of the post-grunge Pop Revolution that swept across the American airwaves in the late ’90s.
“I spent a lot of time [in the U.S.] with my first album,” explains Robyn, speaking of her 1997 debut, Robyn Is Here. “It’s cool to come back in this way, you know, doing it this time on my own terms.”
She’s referring to past record label strife with RCA during the time when her big hits “Do You Know (What It Takes)” and “Show Me Love” sat right alongside Backstreet Boys and the Spice Girls in the upper reaches of Billboard’s Hot 100 chart. In that pre-TRL period of 1997 and 1998—roughly a year before Britney slinked into the public’s consciousness—Robyn was the only blonde-haired pop princess in sight.
“I felt like I was always pushing to get my ideas through,” she says of her frustrations back then. “Things didn’t come naturally in the same way that I wanted them to be.” Eventually, after RCA wouldn’t issue second album My Truth in the U.S. when the singer refused to re-record several tracks, Robyn carried on with a successful career in Sweden. Finally, Robyn struck out from the label system altogether in 2003.
“I knew that I was going to break away from the industry sooner or later,” she explains, “and after the third album, I just got tired of working in this major structure where things were so slow. I knew what this [current] album was going to be. I had a really strong vision and I just didn’t see myself releasing it on a major label.”
Robyn formed her own company, Konichiwa Records—inspired by a comedy sketch by comedian David Chappelle—in the most unconventional of locations: “In the beginning I did everything with three people I work with in Sweden—we started the label in my kitchen.
“Then when I decided to take the album outside Sweden, I hooked up with management in the U.K.,” she continues. “After ‘With Every Heartbeat’ went to #1, we licensed the album to Universal internationally.”
Three years after its initial release in her home country, Robyn is washing onto American shores. In recent months, the singer did a small number of club dates in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles, as well as showcased her album with a performance at Austin’s annual industry gathering, South By Southwest. Robyn also duets on a remix of Snoop Dogg’s recent hit, “Sexual Eruption,” and provides backing vocals on Britney Spears’ “Piece Of Me.”
“For me, the obsession has always been about the song,” Robyn says of her approach to music and with whom she chooses to work. “I grew up arond a lot of songwriters, working with songwriters in Sweden.”
One of the Swedish artists she collaborated with is Andreas Kleerup. It was this pairing that brought Robyn her biggest success outside her home country last year.
“He used to be the drummer in Teddybears, and he became a part of my band as well,” Robyn says of Kleerup. “We were on the road together for like a year during the first part of the release of the album here in Sweden. He played me this track—he was making a solo album—and I thought it was beautiful. We ended up writing together on it, and it became ‘With Every Heartbeat.’”
Finally, when asked about her own brand of unique pop, Robyn offers up a simple explanation: “A good melody. That’s the core of what I do, and that’s always what’s gonna be the base of my music. That to me is what defines pop music—melodies that talk to a lot of people at the same time. That carries the emotion of a song.”
And with that, Robyn appears to be here again...and hopefully for good this time.
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