This month I’m featuring my top 20 albums of the past decade, to celebrate 10 years of This Must Be Pop! Click here to see all the Decade of Pop posts so far.
As a music blogger and pop geek, I often find myself going on and on about an album that I think is brilliant for years, never seeing it receive the success it deserves. When Robyn’s self-titled album was released in 2005, I thought that would be the case. I’d been a fan of Robyn since her initial international success in the late 90s, and I’d followed her career since then. I loved her 2002 album Don’t Stop The Music, but when Robyn was released I knew I’d found something special, so I spread the word to anyone who would listen.
I’ll never know exactly how much effect I had, but I’d like to think I contributed to Robyn’s rise to popularity through the blogosphere. My Stylus review of the album was the first Google result for “Robyn album review” for many years, after all. Listening to it again now, I was reminded how much more R&B-influenced her sound was, and realised how similar this music is to the artists of 2013. Handle Me, for example, would make a great AlunaGeorge song. What makes this album really special, is the mix of cool, catchy attitude-driven songs, and the touching, emotional moments. Robyn is one of very few artists who can do both so well, and this album is a display of her very best work.