Robyn on 'Sexistential', IVF and her queer audience

“Sorry I’m a little late, I was dropping off my son at kindergarten.” That is the new reality for Swedish singer Robyn, who recently released her album Sexistential. Winq spoke with her about the record, IVF, sensuality, queer audiences and activism.

On Sexistential you write about IVF, pregnancy and desire in a very straightforward way. Was it important for you to keep those experiences human instead of talking about them in a more symbolic way?

“Yes, I think so. I don’t know why it took me so long to be able to do that, but I think I’ve always tried to be honest and find something real in my writing. I think my fear of sounding pretentious kept me from being very specific for a long time. On this album I was able, at least on a couple of songs, to be very specific. It is less abstract than my writing has been before.”

Was that more freeing or more daunting than writing something like “Dancing On My Own” back in the day?

“It wasn’t daunting because it was something I really wanted to do. It felt joyful and deliberate. It was fun and interesting for me to go there on this album. I felt ready for it.”

I saw in the press release that you said staying sensual is central to your life, creatively as well as sexually. Does that feel more radical to you now than it used to? I’m seeing that in my own friend group, and even in myself, that as people get older they become less apologetic about their desires and the way they want to live.

“For sure. I think it’s really interesting that, while I’ve been doing interviews for this album, that perspective comes up and is embraced by a lot of the people I speak to who are queer. I think it’s an alternative worldview that the queer community has, which maybe enables you to get there quicker.

I don’t think it’s a new idea, or even a particularly radical one. I just think it’s still not mainstream. It isn’t the norm yet, but it’s something a lot of people have explored. It’s also something that inspires me all the time through my queer friends and the queer community that I’ve felt close to for such a long time.

I think there’s a natural connection between me and the queer community, and that has always been there. I can see it again now, in the way I’m talking about this, that it’s something that comes very naturally to a lot of my queer friends as well. I think the way I had a baby is also something a lot of queer people go through. You have to think about it differently, you have to plan it, you have to think about why you want to be a parent, and what it’s going to look like when it isn’t the conventional situation.”

We’re used to being outside the norm, I think.

“And for me, it didn’t even feel like a radical thing. I think that’s maybe also why I’ve written in a more abstract way before, because there are so many beautiful songwriters in the world and I don’t want to write in a way where I impose something that isn’t really grounded in who I am.

This time I was able to talk about it. I didn’t think I was ever going to write about this subject. In a way it felt a little pretentious and taboo to write about motherhood, although the album isn’t really about motherhood. It’s more about the period before I became a mom. But when I started writing, I realised I couldn’t talk about it in a way that felt interesting if I made it all black and white. There’s a complexity to it.

The period I was in when I was writing the album was quite extreme. The contrasts were quite funny to me, hilarious sometimes, and also really existential. That duality is really what I’ve tried to describe more than anything else.”

Speaking of the queer community, I’m sure you’ve been asked this before, but your music has been embraced by queer audiences for a long time. Why do you think it keeps resonating there, even though you’re probably not specifically writing for that audience?

“Well, in a way I am, but it’s not a strategy. It’s almost like I’m interested in a specific type of expression, or a specific kind of song in a cult tradition, you know what I mean? That song can come from many places. It can be 'I’m On Fire' by Bruce Springsteen, it can be 'Erotic City' by Prince, it can be 'Early In The Morning' by Gap. There are so many directions that sound can come from. I almost think of it as a sculpture of frequency, a specific tension between melancholy and desire. And that is something I think resonates with a certain kind of person. I think the queer community is very connected to that place.”

I think queer audiences tend to gravitate towards strong female figures who are unapologetically themselves. The music has to be good as well, obviously. But actually, that’s not even true, because LaToya Jackson also has a big gay following.

[laughs]

But I think we like women who don’t take shit from men, make really good music, and express themselves in an unapologetic way.

“Yeah.”

What I thought was interesting on Sexistential is that you revisit an older song, 'Blow My Mind' from your 2002 album Don’t Stop The Music. You previously revisited 'Should Have Known' from that same album. What makes you decide to return to an older song, and how do you go about updating or changing it?

“'Blow My Mind' has the quality to it that I was just talking about. There’s a specific kind of songwriting that I’m really into. 'Blow My Mind' was never a single, it was released on an album I made before I started my own label, so it wasn’t really part of the shift that happened after I started Konichiwa Records, when I was able to control the environment I was making music in more fully.

It always felt like a song I would come back to. And this felt like the perfect moment. There were so many songs I kept in my back pocket for this album, things I was already working on when I made Honey, but just didn’t find a place for on that record.

'Blow My Mind' is funny, because its appeal doesn’t come from  a complicated melody or anything like that. It’s more about the rhythm and the way it has the ability to groove, and the ability to be both pop and something very connected to club music. The lyrics felt quite outdated to me, so we decided to rewrite them. Klas Åhlund [a producer Robyn frequently works with] and I are both parents now, and I was breastfeeding when I recorded it. That little creature completely invades your life. It’s very tiring and also extremely sensual and very beautiful at the same time. That closeness was a new kind of intimacy that I wanted to write about.”

So are you saying ‘Blow My Mind’ is now partly about the experience of breastfeeding?

“Totally. It’s about being very close to my son.”

A staple at your live shows is the audience singing the first chorus of 'Dancing On My Own' at you instead of with you. It really gives people goosebumps. How did that start happening, and what goes through your mind when it does?

“It happened by accident the first time. We had a technical crash on stage and the music stopped right before the first chorus. We realised the audience would belt out the chorus, so after that we decided to do it deliberately.

I don’t know how long I’ll be able to do it, though, because now people are expecting it. The element of surprise is important. But it’s a beautiful moment.

With that song, I didn’t realise at first why it connected so strongly with people. It is about loneliness, and about how, when you are in a very lonely place, you can still accept yourself and use the sadness to get yourself out of it.

I didn’t always love that version of myself, the lonely and sad one. But throughout the making of this album, and also the making of a new family, I came back to that song and really started to appreciate the skill it took to do that. I think that’s what people connect to in the song. It’s beautiful to give it back to the audience in that moment and to see their connection to it happen in real time.”

Age also comes up implicitly on this album. Do you feel that the things you’re not ‘supposed’ to talk about as a woman in pop are actually where most of the energy still is? Has that become more interesting to you now?

“I think I’m always looking for that point where there’s contradiction and where there’s freedom. On this album I went to that place where I felt I could be expansive and rebellious, but it wasn’t a conscious decision to be provocative or anything. I don’t even think the album is that provocative. It’s just my real experience of the last five years of my life. I’m about to turn 47, so that’s what I write about.”

And when you write about your own experiences, do you ever worry about oversharing? Or is there a part of your life that you want to keep out of your art?

“I don’t think I’m sharing that much. Life is so complex. What I think is interesting about music is that you can share the most intimate details about yourself without being private. There is a difference. You can be very intimate and very personal, and still leave space for the listener.

If I impose my own opinion on you through a song, it doesn’t wake you up. It doesn’t give you space to insert yourself into it. So there’s this fine balance. It’s almost as if you want to describe everything except the thing itself, you want to say everything around it.

And the listener can insert themselves into a song, the intimacy becomes something different from, say, posting a picture of yourself on social media. It’s a very different way of making a connection, I think, and of being open. It’s not a diary, it’s something else.”

Looking back to 1999 and the My Truth album, which wasn’t released in the UK and the US partly because of 'Giving You Back', where you talk about abortion: you would think that 25 years later the world would be more open and progressive, but it seems that women’s rights, and also LGBTQ+ rights, are under pressure again, especially in the US. How does that influence your artistry? When the leash is tightened a little, does it make you want to speak out more?

“Yes, it does. I think now is the time to be open about your opinions, about where your line is, and where your limits are. I think it’s really important to be transparent.

But I also don’t think voicing an opinion is interesting if it only polarises the world further. It’s a fine line. It’s really hard to express an opinion without offending anyone right now. I think it’s almost impossible.

I spoke to someone yesterday who said something interesting: although things are so black and white and so aggressive on social media right now, in real life, when we are actually with each other, there isn’t as much violence. There is definitely violence, and as you say, human rights are really in danger right now. But I think that in real relationships, in real-life connections, we are still much more respectful of each other than we are on social media.

So I think it’s important to separate those two things. How are we treating each other in real life, and how are we treating each other on social media? We shouldn’t take social media for reality. I think that’s the problem.”

Yes, I think you can have a really lovely evening in a café with someone super right-wing, as long as you don’t talk about politics.

“Yeah.”

Songs like 'Sucker For Love' and 'It Don’t Mean A Thing' feel emotionally naked, but also strangely unsentimental. Have you become more romantic, or more realistic about love?

“More realistic, definitely. I think I’ve come out of the sect of romantic love. I’m de-sectified.

But I’ve also definitely come out as a romantic. I am. I think that’s what 'Sucker For Love' is about, defending my soft side. I’m a softie, but I’m standing up for her. I’m not taking any shit on that song, which is good. It’s a good archetype.

I’ve written songs like that before. 'Be Mine' is about that as well, and also 'With Every Heartbeat'. That’s the same character as in 'Dancing On My Own', the one I didn’t think I wanted to go back to. But I think now I can, in a different way. I still think she has a purpose, and an interesting perspective too.”

Amsterdam will host WorldPride this year, so it’s a big year for The Netherlands. What does Pride mean to you as someone who has long been embraced by that community?

“Pride means engaging with my friends and what they’re doing during that week. Pride means supporting my community and being present in whatever the culture is dealing with at the moment. Pride is a lot of things now, but not all of it is my Pride. That’s how it should be too.

My heart breaks every time I watch the Pride parade, especially when I see the proud parents of queer people. That’s my favourite part of the parade. That’s when I start crying, to see the support those parents are showing there. Those moments are my favourite.”

What album besides Sexistential would you say you’re most proud of in your back catalogue?

“Oh, I don’t know. All of them. I don’t know which one. Proud is maybe not the word I would use. I don’t look back that way. I just do it and then I leave it.”

Or maybe the one you have the fondest memories of making, perhaps the first album on your own label?

“They were all hard. I think what’s beautiful about the Honey album, even though I’m not picking it out of the group exactly, is that the intention of those songs really works, especially now that I’m rehearsing new material.

When I play those songs live, there’s this feeling of losing your sense of time a little. And that is really what I was interested in when I made the album: how to make a pop album that somehow relates to what I learned from club culture.

When we do the song 'Honey' live, for example, there’s a different vibe. It’s present. The audience goes into a different mood, they go inward. It has a calmness to it. I didn’t realise that was going to happen, but it’s interesting when you revisit material and place it next to other songs. There’s a quality to that album that is very specific and very intentional.”

Are there any other songs from your first few albums that you might want to reinvent in the future?

“Well, I’ve done reinterpretations of 'Should Have Known' and 'Blow My Mind' now, and no, I don’t necessarily need to go back. But I am really interested in re-recording. The process of re-recording is really beautiful. It’s like you realise what the song actually is, because you can hear it in different versions. Remixes are like that as well, and covers too. It’s an interesting process.

And I’m not going to say too much, but I’m interested in re-recording a lot of things, actually. It’s not about specific songs so much as finding a new place for them that makes sense. I’m being very abstract in my answers now, I’m sorry.”

That’s okay. Very last question, then. Can you name a song you’d like to cover in the future?

“No, because then I’d give it away.”

You don’t want to spoil the surprise.

“No, I don’t want to spoil it. But there are things coming soon.”