Watch Robyn perform an acoustic version of "Be mine" for Pitchfork: http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/download/147161-video-robyn-be-mine-acoustic-version
Artist: Robyn
Viewing posts 151-165 out of 344Check out the new video for Robyn's latest international dingle "Dream on" (w/Christian Falk): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypQtJ8z6q5o
You can now view the new Robyn video for "Cobrastyle" over at Spinner: http://www.spinner.com/2008/10/09/robyn-cobrastyle-video-premiere/
Annie
Live @ Mucha Marcha/Proud Gallery, London, 07/04/08
How times change. Almost three years ago to the day I saw Annie supporting Saint Etienne at the sparsely populated Koko venue. She was swamped by the size of the stage and was aided only by a DJ with decks and effects.
Fast forward three years and it seems Annie is being given a second bite of the pop cherry. She's back and this time she means it. The decadent surroundings of The Proud Gallery provide the fashionista crowd and Annie a feel akin to what I imagine a high school prom would be like. This time around she is complemented with a full band set up, which gives the songs a lot more room to breathe. Forthcoming single, "I know your girlfriend hates me", is transformed into an extended dancefloor filler, with Annie joined by a troupe of female dancers. They don't look too dissimilar to the girls featured Robert Palmer's iconic "Addicted to love" video. At the song's climax lollipops are handed out to the crowd, adding to her sugary sweet appeal. Annie is totally self-assured, a prom queen conducting her band and the crowd with her slightly pervy red gloves. The new songs are a bit of a mixed bag. "My love is better", with its choppy guitars, errs very slightly towards bland territory but "Songs remind me of you" could well be a monster hit in waiting. Starting out as a disco stomper and building up into an enormous four-by-four breakdown, it ticks all the boxes of a club banger. It's not rocket science. Just don't tell that to the heaving masses of gurning, grinning fools partying like it's 1999.
Tonight Annie passed the hipster test, but now she needs to prove she can cross over to the mainstream. Getting Xenomania on board (the production team behind Girls Aloud) signifies her intentions. However, whether she can throw down the gauntlet and challenge Robyn as the queen of Scandi pop is another matter entirely.
- Nick Levine
Kleerup
s/t
EMI
Pop music can be about a lot more than shifting hundreds of a thousands of records and continuously rotating overly-glitzy music videos, and Andreas Kleerup's self-titled debut is verification of this idea. Holding more in common with The Knife's songwriting approach than that of Max Martin, and reveling in similar production tricks to that of Justice, Kleerup's compositions seem almost "accidentally" radio friendly; too much effort has been put into these tracks for them to be dismissed as pop fluff, and yet too much pop sensibility has gone into their writing for the songs to feel pretentiously avant-garde -- the album's strengths exist somewhere in between these two judgments. While the record is rather star-studded with tracks featuring numerous well-known artists: Robyn, Lykke Li, Neneh Cherry, and Marit Bergman, to name a few, Kleerup's own tracks stand up well on their own. "Thank you for nothing" runs cleverly between Europop-like catchiness and the allure of well-produced remixes of bands like Phoenix, and opener "Hero" is an engaging first look at the album, evoking a strange mix between Vangelis and Röyksopp. "With every heartbeat", the Robyn-featured single, is my favorite track, though the Marit Bergman led "3am" and Lykke Li's "Until we bleed" are not far behind. Overall, "Kleerup" is a skillfully produced pop record that's as much fun as it is expertly written and executed -- a pleasant departure from the soulless gloss of so many other pop albums.
- Lars Garvey Laing-Peterson
MSN has quality live footage of Robyn performing in LA: http://video.msn.com/video.aspx/?mkt=en-gb&vid=5bd5370f-e557-45d6-9fa2-0498e8d25fae&fg=rss&wa=wsignin1.0
Robyn will support Madonna on tour in Europe:
08/26 - Stade Charles Ehrmann, Nice
08/28 - Olympic Stadium, Berlin
08/30 - Military Airfield Dubendorf, Zurich
09/02 - Arena, Amsterdam
09/04 - LTU Arena, Dusseldorf
09/09 - Commerzbank Arena, Frankfurt
09/14 - Parque da Bela Vista, Lisbon
09/23 - Danube Island, Vienna
09/27 - Olympic Stadium, Athens
Here's the playlist for this week's radio show (Hultsfred special):
01. Familjen - Huvudet i sanden
02. TALK 1
03. Säkert! - Vi kommer att dö samtidigt
04. Robyn - Cobrastyle
05. Håkan Hellström - Kär i en ängel
06. TALK 2
07. Those Dancing Days - Dischoe
08. Mustasch - I hunt alone
09. Johnossi - Party with my pain
10. The Process - Mot Sverige i tiden
11. TALK 3
12. Raised Fist - Breaking me up
13. Firefox AK - Once I was like you (Markus Guentner remix)
14. Dreamboy - Pay attention
15. TALK 4
16. Miss Li - Miss Li
17. Markus Krunegård - Jag är en vampyr
18. Timo Räisänen - My valentine
19. TALK 5
20. The Hives - You dress up for Armageddon
Reminder: my show on Sirius Left of Center (channel 26) is now on Sundays at 11pm ET with repeats on Monday.
MP3: Kleerup - Until we bleed
I know a lot of folks are eager to kickstart the Kleerup backlash in earnest, so to them let me say this: sorry, but his new album really isn't all that bad. For one, he's got a lot of starpower in his favor; Robyn, Marit Bergman, Lykke Li (today's mp3), Titiyo, Lisa Milberg (The Concretes) and Neneh Cherry all lend their voices to tracks. On the other hand, those tracks are the only standouts as Kleerup's instrumentals are unanimously forgettable. So when I say that the album isn't all that bad, it really isn't all that great either. "Until we bleed" is sublime, smoky and sad-sack, easily the album highlight. I'm not even that much of a Lykke Li fan, but her fragile delivery here suits the dark, bubbly sound to a tee. It's all about vibe and the string samples in the refrain accentuate her vulnerability, giving the track a subdued but seductive coating. Compared to "With every heartbeat" (ft. Robyn), my pick for the 2nd best track (and one I assume everyone's already heard more than enough times by now), it's far less immediate, but far more rewarding overall. The formula is almost exactly the same almost to the point of self-plagiarization, except that Robyn can't help but make everything she sings into an anthem. When Kleerup attempts to do the same with Marit Bergman and Titiyo, the results are decent enough, but nowhere near as exciting. It's not the vocalists' fault - they do their job adequately enough, the tracks just don't accentuate their strengths. In a word: tepid. Not hot, not cold, not even worth discussing. Grab this one and blast it, forget the rest.
Kleerup - Until we bleed (ft. Lykke Li)
Pitchfork reports that Robyn is ditching my neck of the woods (the Pacific NW) for a guest spot on "The View": http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/news/50522-robyn-postpones-two-shows-to-play-the-view
Check out Robyn's new video for "Eclipse": http://www.spinner.com/2008/05/02/robyn-eclipse-video-exclusive/
Check out an alternate take here: http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?mkt=en-us&vid=7e0eacaf-758a-40c5-982b-f0fba16227cc&fg=rss&from=34
All the various remixes for the new Robyn single "Who's that girl" are streaming at myspace in a mashup: http://www.myspace.com/robynmyspace
PopMatters on the US release of Robyn's self-titled album: http://www.popmatters.com/pm/music/reviews/57428/robyn-robyn/
Also reviewed: El Perro Del Mar's latest: http://www.popmatters.com/pm/music/reviews/57750/el-perro-del-mar-from-the-valley-to-the-stars/