Robyn - 'Be Mine'
It's often said that we Brits are obsessed with class. It's probably a hangover from history, rolling all the way back to the feudal system, and may even be partly our way of addressing social status without any of those troublesome revolutions that carved up most of Europe. So a non-British ChartBlog reader, on reading that it's patently obvious that Robyn is someone who has class, someone whose music is a cut above the common rabble, may well roll their eyes and mutter "well, you WOULD say that, you crazy Britfolk".
But how else can you describe someone who clearly wants to use the deepest, most significant and dark moments of her emotional history to make silly old childish pop music? And rather than cram her songs with catty comebacks and violent lyrical swipes* at the rubbish heartbreaker that most of her songs seem to be aimed at, she's great at putting her case in a grown-up, rational, sensible sort of way, without ever losing the passion which drove her to wrote the song in the first place.
Take the backing track for 'Be Mine!', for example. It's got cellos where other people would have chuntering rock guitars. It's got Barry White disco string stabs. It's got a drum machine which occasionally sounds like someone bashing away on one of those old ribbon type-writers you see in old films. There's just something really classy about the arrangement, part classical, part ultra-modern.
And then there's the lyrics. It takes a really generous heart to forgive someone for not loving you enough at the exact moment when you're a) telling them off for not loving you enough and b) wailing your sorrow that they didn't love you enough to the dark wintry skies. And this is definitely a song of forgiveness, as much as it is a song of recrimination and sudden self-awareness.
Robyn is great at singing in a way which hints at enormous turmoil without having to dredge her throat for an over-the-top collection of screams and moans. Courtney Love (to pick an example of an entirely different school of singing) she is not. But it's not as if you can't TELL she's heartbroken, and that's what I mean about being classy. Hints are far more beguiling than endless wallowing detail, especially in songs.
All of which makes Robyn a right proper pop toff and no mistake, guv...
* Yes, yes, I know. 'You Can't Handle Me' is nothing BUT catty comebacks and violent lyrical swipes. Not every pop theory is water-tight, OK?
Download: Out now
CD Released: January 14th
(Fraser McAlpine)
Comments
I ADORE This Song, Always Singing Along =]