Robyn ‘Sexistential’ review: the divine sound of hard-won freedom
While ageing might often come with fears of less, Robyn gives more in every department on her first album in eight years, flipping the script on both her own narrative, as well as those traditionally associated with pop stars her age
There are almost enough songs on Robyn’s new album Sexistential (nine) to assign one to each year since she released her last album, Honey (eight). With another eight years before that since she released the classic Body Talk, it’s clear the Swedish pop icon now only shows herself when she’s really got something worth saying.
As is clear from first listen, Sexistential has only arrived after a hell of a lot of living. “I feel like the purpose of my life is to stay horny,” went the instantly memorable quote from the singer upon the album’s announcement. She’s talking about sex, sure, but also about being hungry for life, for new experiences, and to not settle in any form. On songs that sonically hark back to her early days – all bubbling synths and thudding bass – she sounds more fired up, confident and ravenous than ever.
After the exploratory Honey, Robyn wanted Sexistential to feel “like a spaceship coming through the atmosphere at a really high speed and crash landing,” she says. Said crash is messy, brutally honest and delightful. “Fuck a app, I need me some IRL,” she says to open the album’s title track, a wonderfully frank song in which she is out looking for sex while simultaneously undergoing treatment to raise a child alone (“I’ve been on Raya while on IVF”).
On the operating table, she’s asked by her doctor who her ideal sperm donor would be: “Well, Adam Driver did always kinda give me a boner!” she responds wickedly, with the doctor then mistaking him for Adam Sandler. It’s outrageous, laugh-out-loud funny and the brashest and boldest example of the confidence and bravado at the album’s core.
‘Sexistential’ was written after Robyn read an interview with André 3000 in which he said that he pivoted to playing jazz flute because he didn’t want to rap about “getting a colonoscopy” in his forties. Robyn’s take was that it’s exactly the sort of thing she would want people to sing about, and does here.
It’s an album that sees her growing in every way – more brash, more careful, more loving. While ageing might often come with fears of less, Robyn gives more in every department and flips the script on both her own narrative, as well as those traditionally associated with pop stars her age.
On the bubbling single ‘Dopamine’, the ecstatic final chorus is welcomed with a surely deliberate echo of the huge drum fill that everyone remembers from her heartbreak anthem, ‘Dancing on My Own’. This time, Robyn’s in control (“Somethin’ here’s openin’ deep inside of me / I can finally reach it,” she sings, welcoming her new era) – it’s the completely divine sound of hard-won freedom.