Body Talk Pt. 2

Pt 2 doesn't have the same feel; it's as if Robyn may have exhausted her supply of great songs too soon. It has its moments, but in general just doesn't compare to Pt 1. But hat doesn't mean it's bad; it's still made of the same lovable, danceable ingredients that has made Robyn such a perfect pop star over the past decade, and anything remotely in that ballpark is going to be at the very least listenable.

Robyn is a sharp, sassy star capable of making heartbreaking, cutting edge, electro-pop seemingly with ease. Her determination to do things her own way and challenge the conceptions of how records are made and released in the 21st century should be applauded. Planet pop is a brighter place with renegades like Robyn. “Having said that” (thankyou Larry David) can I be a pain and just have all the imperial pop classics from the Body Talk trilogy on one ten track album? That’d be grand. Much love, thanks!

Body Talk (Part 2), however, marks a bit of a departure from Robyn's previous formula of 'creative' tracks sprinkled through with low-key pop gems. Out of the blue here she's taken up a bit of a space disco pose, a fairly bold stylistic move.

Pt. 2 steps away from this formula some: the range of sounds and feelings she explores is a good deal thinner, but the album has more spontaneity, attitude, and traditional pop power than its predecessor. Where on Pt. 1 Robyn messed around with Jamaican sounds and Swedish folk, here she primarily sticks with the quick-moving, clubby synth-pop that is her calling card.

Thankfully, it’s a little harder to level this critique at Pt. 2, which features less filler, and more tracks that are straight-up Robyn. Album opener In My Eyes entails some respectable space-minded dance pop, with Robyn lyrically describing herself as a source of vague, cosmic redemption for world weary listeners. It’s a decent enough song, but it’s one of numerous tracks in her career where attempts at describing commonplace emotional calamity come off as either trite (Cry When You Get Older) or downright silly (Robotboy). Another prime example of this deficiency occurs on Pt. 2’s Love Kills, where blaster cannon arpeggiators and drum machines provide the backdrop for dreadful lines such as, “Protect yourself/Cuz you’ll wreck yourself/In this cold hard world/So check yourself”.