Robyn sits silently, eyes closed, for what feels like a full minute. \u201cWow,\u201d she says. \u201cThis is really deep\u201d It has been eight years since this elder stateswoman of alt-pop released music. She is talking about how, since then, her life has fractured and reassembled. The 46-year-old Swede\u2019s previous album, Honey, was finished in the afterglow of repairing her engagement to director Max\u00a0Vitali. Now, she\u2019s no longer in that relationship, she\u2019s raising a three-year-old son, Tyko, whom she had by IVF, on her own, and she has also reckoned with the scars of her own childhood, growing up in an exploitative music industry.<\/p>\n
We meet in a breezy attic above a recording studio in London to talk about her new album, Sexistential \u2013 an ode to letting your guard down and feeling things deeply. \u201cDefending my right to be myself and be vulnerable,\u201d she says. She\u2019s wearing biker boots and a mesh hoodie, and has tucked a bomber jacket, two overflowing handbags and a black leather sailor hat into the nooks and crannies of the sofa as if constructing a\u00a0nest around herself. She\u2019s thrilled to be back. \u201cI\u2019ve\u00a0never released an album as a parent, so it\u2019s really exciting to work.\u201d She laughs, flashing a chipped tooth. \u201cWhen I do get time for myself, it\u2019s liberating and fun.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s hard to imagine modern pop without Robyn. Born Robin Carlsson, she was signed at just 14, and groomed to be a teenybopper R&B star, the prototype for artists such as Britney Spears<\/a> and Christina Aguilera<\/a>. Then she walked away from the manufactured machine, set up her own independent label, and proved there was a way to make pop autonomously. A whole generation of artists \u2013 from Gracie Abrams<\/a> and Lorde<\/a> to Charli xcx<\/a>, Carly Rae Jepsen<\/a> and Harry Styles<\/a> \u2013 are evangelical about her influence, both as an industry reimaginer and maker of very good songs. \u201cI would never want to take credit for any of that,\u201d she says when I mention this. She sits with her chin in her hands, elbows on her knees, furrowing her brow to emphasise her points.<\/p>\n Still, her back catalogue of synth-injected sad bangers \u2013 heartbreak anthems sung over ricocheting club beats, including Hang With Me<\/a> (about a\u00a0situationship), Call Your Girlfriend<\/a> (being the other woman) and Dancing on My Own<\/a> (seeing an ex\u2011partner), are so intrinsic to the millennial experience that Lena\u00a0Dunham bookended her seminal TV show Girls with her music. \u201cI\u2019m in the corner \/ watching you kiss her\u201d played as Dunham\u2019s character Hannah Horvath danced around her bedroom with housemate Marnie Michaels in episode three<\/a>, and cult TV history was made.<\/p>\n \u201cSome people said that Girls popularised that Robyn song, but I\u2019d actually say that Robyn popularised Girls,\u201d Dunham tells me. \u201cThey will probably play it at my funeral and I\u2019m really, really OK with that.\u201d She thinks Robyn belongs in the same canon as Bj\u00f6rk, PJ Harvey, Bette Davis, Kate Bush and FKA twigs, \u201cas women who have not found a niche but created an entire universe\u201d.<\/p>\n And it\u2019s not just millennials who love Robyn. When Charli xcx brought Robyn on stage to sing Dancing on My Own<\/a> at London\u2019s O2 Arena during her Brat tour in 2024, it caused a frenzy among the largely gen Z crowd. \u201cThe moment I stepped out, I just had this wall of screaming,\u201d Robyn says, her eyes widening. \u201cI couldn\u2019t believe it.\u201d<\/p>\n Robyn in 1997 (top) and with Rahim Redcar, formerly known as Christine and the Queens, and Charli xcx in 2020 (above). Photographs: Ron Galella Collection; Dave Benett, both Getty Images<\/p>\n Robyn hadn\u2019t intended to take so much time away from work, she tells me. In 2020, she was desperate to throw herself into making new music. The Honey tour had been punishing. \u201cI had just mended my relationship, and then it fell apart.\u201d Performing the record while heartbroken was challenging. \u201cI just wanted to work, but the pandemic hit and, like everyone else, I had to quarantine \u2013 although, in Sweden, it was very different.\u201d (Less a stay-at-home order and more a ban on large gatherings and travel.)<\/p>\n She was offered a studio room at Max Martin\u2019s Stockholm recording space. She had worked with the super producer and Taylor Swift collaborator as a\u00a0teenager and in her late 20s. (He was \u201cgraceful\u201d to work with even back then, she says, but he\u2019s more relaxed these days.) She loved being at the studio, \u201cbecause there was this sense of community and I\u00a0could start working again, which was really exciting. At the same time, I was dating, which was difficult in the pandemic, and I was doing IVF as well.\u201d<\/p>\n Robyn had always known she\u2019d wanted to be a\u00a0parent. \u201cI\u00a0thought it would happen much sooner,\u201d she says. \u201cBut then I think motherhood in a conventional heterosexual relationship, in my life at least, has been really hard to reconcile with what I think I would have to do to make that work.\u201d What was that? The unequal split of labour? \u201cDefinitely the split of labour, but also \u2026\u201d She pauses. \u201cI would have been able to accept things that weren\u2019t great in a relationship without children. But, when kids exist, every single thing that the other person does is so important.\u201d<\/p>\n double quotation markThe idea of having children in the relationships I\u00a0was in felt like a very risky thing to doPortrait: Daniella Maiorano\/The Guardian. Minidress: Dsquared2. Bikini: Rabanne. Shoes: Acne Studios<\/p>\n She adds: \u201cThe idea of having children in the relationships I\u00a0was in felt like a very risky thing to do. I just felt [like] that was more scary than waiting.\u201d<\/p>\n She had frozen her eggs at 34 \u2013 \u201cbecause I wasn\u2019t certain that I was in a relationship that would support my wish to become a mother\u201d \u2013 but she\u2019d done it in America.\u00a0She couldn\u2019t access them during the pandemic, so had to begin the harvesting process again. \u201cAnd I was older. I didn\u2019t know if it was going\u00a0to\u00a0work.\u00a0I\u00a0did a few\u00a0rounds. It was a fucking rollercoaster, but also it makes you think about things that you otherwise wouldn\u2019t. What is my identity as someone with children, and what is it without? It\u2019s extremely existential.\u201d<\/p>\n Doing it alone complicated things further. \u201cI had seen myself having a kid in a stable relationship. I was sad to let go of that. It felt like a failure.\u201d While pregnant with Tyko she tied herself in knots. When he needed a\u00a0male role model, what would that look like? Would she be able to defend her decision to have him on her own?<\/p>\n double quotation markIt\u2019s very, very taxing to be a single mum or dad. I\u00a0grew up that way<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think any human being can say, \u2018I have a\u00a0right to have a child.\u2019 But if you want it, you can\u2019t really question your desire to be a parent. You can question how you do it and who you do it with, but you can\u2019t question the actual need.\u201d<\/p>\n She reaches into a handbag for a nicotine pouch and pops it into her mouth.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s\u00a0like saying, \u2018Why are we here?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n I say I read somewhere that one of her biggest fears was ending up a single mother. Why does she think that is? \u201cIt\u2019s very, very taxing to be a single mum or dad. I\u00a0grew up that way.\u201d Her parents broke up before she was 11, and she and her younger brother and sister split their teen years between their homes in Stockholm, where Robyn still lives. \u201cMy mother was tired and she was struggling, and I just didn\u2019t want to repeat things that I\u2019d been through as a kid.\u201d What kind of things? \u201cI don\u2019t want to expose my mum. She\u2019s a great mum, but, you know, just the lack of time, the lack of energy to be present, to not feel happy with your situation.\u201d<\/p>\n How was IVF for her? \u201cIt is pretty hardcore. It\u2019s definitely a challenge, physically and psychologically.\u201d She puts on a comedy sad voice as she adds, \u201cBut \u2018boohoo, I had to do IVF\u2019, it\u2019s also a privilege. The fact that it\u2019s even possible! It\u2019s something that costs money, and a lot of people don\u2019t even have the option.\u201d<\/p>\n On Sexistential, she raps about being on the dating app Raya while having the injections and tests needed for IVF. (The record title \u2013 a hybrid of sex and existential \u2013 nods to this juxtaposition.) Did deciding to have a baby alone change how she approached dating?<\/p>\n \u201cI think maybe having children and having a\u00a0relationship are two very different projects. They\u2019re not the same thing at all. Flirting, hooking up while I was pregnant, and not even telling people I was pregnant felt great, because I didn\u2019t need to share that.\u201d It was a sexual awakening of sorts. \u201cWhen there isn\u2019t as much at stake, sex becomes more fun.\u201d<\/p>\n Was it ever difficult to juggle hook-ups with the side effects of IVF? \u201cWell, sometimes you can\u2019t have sex because you\u2019re super fertile, you have 20 eggs growing in your tubes.\u201d Her body started to feel like a machine. \u201cThat was one of the weirdest and most absurd experiences with the IVF.\u201d<\/p>\n She poured all of this into the album. It is longing and urgent with bright synths, beats pulled from sweaty dancefloors and lyrics exploring loneliness, heartbreak, sensuality and abandon: \u201cMy body\u2019s a\u00a0spaceship with the ovaries on hyperdrive \/ Got a whole universe inside that exists in between my thighs \/ Do\u00a0I\u00a0have the consistency to persist and finish this ride?\u201d She remembers listening to a lot of Prince<\/a> and the US band Suicide<\/a> as she was writing, getting excited by guitars and riffs. She\u2019d been stockpiling songs that sounded like that for years \u2013 including Dopamine, Sexistential\u2019s sad-happy first single \u2013 but they hadn\u2019t been right for Honey. That album\u2019s dreamy club hits had been a\u00a0rejection of her public image. \u201cI was tired of this broken-hearted character that I\u00a0was portraying all the time, and I tried to really move away from that,\u201d she says. This time, something changed. \u201cI saw this heartbroken archetype, on Dancing on My Own, as an asset. The thing that I had been maybe embarrassed about, you know \u2013 always being so sad.\u201d<\/p>\n Robyn spent her earliest years touring Sweden in a VW minibus with her parents, Wilhelm, a director, and Maria, an actor and director, in the experimental theatre group Teater Scheherazade. \u201cIt was a very cool environment to grow up in,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u00a0remember not being bored, but just having this sense of endless time. My parents believed in creative freedom. They were very ideological in that sense: defending expression, not making theatre with a commercial purpose. I think that environment made me used to certain things that were very hard to find when I started working in music.\u201d<\/p>\n She was singing a song she\u2019d written about her parents\u2019 divorce in a school assembly when she was discovered by Swedish pop star Meja Kullersten and signed a deal, ending up at Jive Records, which later became a subsidiary of BMG. She had a platinum album in her homeland before she turned 18. She opened for Tina\u00a0Turner<\/a> aged just 16. (\u201cI had this feeling of, \u2018I\u2019m\u00a0just a little shit, like, I\u2019m just a little fart in the universe, next to this woman.\u2019\u201d) She went on roadshows in the UK \u2013 playing coastal towns with the Spice Girls<\/a> \u2013 and in the US with Destiny\u2019s Child and \u2018NSync.<\/p>\n Watching clips of her from around this time, she\u2019s every bit the squeaky-voiced teen idol \u2013 bopping to You\u2019ve Got That Somethin\u2019<\/a>, in a matching tan suede coat and bootcut trousers. She\u2019d often end up in different time zones from anyone she knew back home, and international calls were expensive and difficult to organise. She remembers sound checking at an arena with Destiny\u2019s Child thinking about how focused they were, how \u201cAmerican\u201d compared with her. \u201cI\u00a0just felt like a UFO. And I was there by myself, without my parents. It was scary and confusing.\u201d<\/p>\n Even when she was able to reach her family, \u201cI was having a lot of very formative and big experiences, like learning how to decipher this whole new culture, and just never really having \u2013 which I don\u2019t think you have at that age \u2013 the language to translate that to anyone at home, either.\u201d It sounds really isolating, I say. \u201cVery isolating. That\u2019s why I checked out. I just couldn\u2019t do it. I wasn\u2019t built for that.\u201d<\/p>\n I\u2019ve heard talk about how she started out in the industry before the #MeToo movement. What were the men she was working with like during this time? \u201cFortunately, I never had any experiences that could be labelled as abuse. But there was an environment and a\u00a0culture that was disgusting, and the language around my body, or how grown-up men would talk about pictures and images, about styling, about sexuality \u2026\u201d she grimaces. \u201cIt was extremely brutal and intimidating, and my way of dealing with it was just putting on armour. I didn\u2019t want to show my body, I didn\u2019t want to even experiment, which I think is sad.\u201d<\/p>\n double quotation markI don\u2019t want to sound like a\u00a0snob, but I\u2019m not interested in commercial pop culturePortrait: Daniella Maiorano\/The Guardian. Sweater: Bless<\/p>\n When Robyn talks about motherhood, it feels as if she\u2019s carefully placing every word in each sentence, often pausing to recalibrate. Now, she\u2019s letting rip.<\/p>\n \u201cOf\u00a0course, I\u00a0look at it as, like, \u2018Oh, that was great that I had the strength to do that.\u2019 And Billie Eilish<\/a> is a great example of how it\u2019s still possible and needed to shut that down when you\u2019re a young artist, if you want to keep your integrity. But it\u2019s sad because you do have a\u00a0sexuality when you\u2019re 16. You do have a playful, sensual side as a\u00a0young woman that can still be interesting and beautiful, but it wasn\u2019t at all possible for me to explore that.\u201d<\/p>\n She remembers one particular time, being in a room full of men in their 30s and 40s, with no other women present. \u201cThey were talking about how they wanted me to show my \u2018youthfulness\u2019, which meant more skin.\u201d She was aware of how grotesque that was; she even joked about it with her friends at the time. \u201cBut in those meetings, they weren\u2019t even thinking about it as being embarrassing. There was no one on the other side that would defend my perspective, so my strategy was just keeping them at arm\u2019s length.\u201d<\/p>\n An article from 2003 described one of her record labels as \u201cSweden\u2019s Lolita-pop doll house<\/a>\u201d; language like that was used all the time back then, she tells me. \u201cYou were interviewed about your body and the way you look; Howard Stern talking to women about their weight. Just this culture in the 1990s that was disgusting.\u201d<\/p>\n It took years of psychotherapy to fully process the effect that decade in the machine had on her. The relationship between her and label bosses deteriorated rapidly. Her second album, My Truth, in 1999, included Giving You Back, a song she wrote about having an abortion. It was never released in America.<\/p>\n \u201cYou would have to ask them if it was specifically because of that song,\u201d she says. \u201cI think I also made an album that just wasn\u2019t as commercial as my first. They realised I was going to be a tricky artist to work with. I know for a fact that they had a big problem with the subject matter, and there were discussions about, \u2018If we release it, we\u2019re going to have to take it off the album.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Robyn in concert in 2019. Photograph: Gary Miller\/Getty Images<\/p>\n It took a long period of negotiation in order to get her out of her final contract. She managed to quit in 2005, giving up the right to royalties. She is very grateful to have got out. Max Martin would go on to write for another teenage pop wunderkind, Britney Spears. Robyn recorded the demo and backing vocals for Piece of Me, the\u00a0single Spears wrote about her fame-induced breakdown<\/a>. Did she ever compare their diverging\u00a0trajectories?<\/p>\n \u201cIt wasn\u2019t even something I had to process later. I was aware of it when it was happening. And I was just lucky that I was brought up in a\u00a0very different context. There was no interest from my family for me to have a career. [My\u00a0parents] were like, \u2018We just think you\u2019re crazy \u2013 why do you want to do this?\u2019 That protected me.\u201d<\/p>\n She tells me she was recently looking at an old record contract with her lawyer and discovered that her artist deal had just a 6% royalty. \u201cIt\u2019s insanely little. It\u2019s unheard of nowadays,\u201d she says. The average is up to 25% for sales<\/a>. \u201cThese insane inequalities between artists and the industry have got better. Although the whole streaming thing is another problem.\u201d<\/p>\n The sense of relief she felt when she left was massive. She remembers watching MTV during that time and seeing videos from Spears and Aguilera. \u201cIt was basically Instagram before Instagram for me, comparing our lives. But I just knew that I was never going to do this. I knew I wasn\u2019t going to be able to go back to that kind of environment.\u201d<\/p>\n Robyn with songwriter and producer Klas \u00c5hlund, 2011. Photograph: Campbell Black\/ WireImage<\/p>\n The world Robyn has built for herself is totally different. She still runs her own label, Konichiwa Records. She has writing credits on every song on Sexistential, and production credits on most, alongside Swedish hardcore rocker Klas \u00c5hlund, \u201cthe second member of the band Robyn\u201d. Her performances are often playful \u2013 she might salsa, tumble across a\u00a0floor or pretend to be a bull<\/a>. Her first TV performance of Sexistential<\/a>, on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in January, saw her grind the stage in a\u00a0studded leather vest.<\/p>\n How does she think the current pop landscape for women compares with when she started out? From the outside, it seems as if artists such as Rosal\u00eda <\/a>are able to be more individual?<\/p>\n \u201cJust the fact that people are not expecting female artists to be a certain thing is cool. You expect diversity and you expect expression.\u201d She takes a long breath. \u201cI love it, but I don\u2019t relate to this very commercial layer of pop. I don\u2019t want to sound like a\u00a0snob. I\u2019m not talking about Rosal\u00eda specifically, because I\u00a0think she\u2019s amazing, but I don\u2019t see all us girls as the same thing. I\u2019m not interested in commercial pop culture.\u201d<\/p>\n She doesn\u2019t see big female artists as her peers. There\u2019s a group of musicians in Sweden she leans on as a support network, including singer-songwriters Frida\u00a0Hyv\u00f6nen and Jenny Wilson. The rapper Yung\u00a0Lean<\/a> \u00a0is a neighbour. Charli xcx is a close friend, too, despite their 13-year age gap. \u201cWhenever we meet, it\u2019s not, like, \u2018Oh, I\u00a0got you, because you\u2019re a girl and we have the same experiences.\u2019 It\u2019s never been that \u2013 it\u2019s been a real personal connection,\u201d she says of the\u00a0British\u00a0star.<\/p>\n Robyn is considered but firm. She ruffles her white-blond bowl cut whenever she thinks deeply. Over the course of our conversation it has gone from lightly tousled to the unruly mane of a pop-punk band member.<\/p>\n I wonder how she feels about ageing. Music is not an industry known for welcoming women in midlife who want to explore their sexuality on their own terms. \u201cI\u00a0don\u2019t have this feeling at all that my age is defining me. It\u2019s more the other way around. I think that it\u2019s starting to define me less and less.\u201d<\/p>\n Still, it\u2019s not as if we\u2019re living in an era of age positivity. It feels as if the pressure to be smooth of face at every stage of life is only increasing. Sitting opposite Robyn now, it\u2019s striking to see a pop star with smile lines and soft creases in her forehead as she talks.<\/p>\n double quotation markSometimes you can feel, as an older woman, that\u00a0there\u2019s this desert, there\u2019s this man desertPortrait: Daniella Maiorano\/The Guardian. Jacket: Robyn\u2019s own. Jeans: Helmut Lang, courtesy of Dossier LDN. Shoes: Maison Margiela, courtesy of Jessica Temple at For The Soup<\/p>\n \u201cI have no problem with Botox,\u201d she says. \u201cDo whatever you want, seriously. The sad part is that sometimes you can feel, as an older woman, that\u00a0there\u2019s this desert, there\u2019s this man desert. Are there any men out there who understand and appreciate and feel curious about what it\u2019s like to be a woman over 40? I think there are.\u201d She\u2019s not a\u00a0person\u00a0who likes to generalise about men, she tells me. She\u2019s been doing a\u00a0lot thinking about what wasn\u2019t working in her previous relationships. \u201cA lot of it is about who I was in those relationships. I\u2019m a different kind of person than I used to be. I\u2019m older and I\u2019m a mother. I want stability and if there\u2019s not that I don\u2019t need to commit.\u201d<\/p>\n She describes becoming a mother as a series of \u201cextremely small things that profoundly alter your way of existing\u201d. Like Bluey beating out your actual favourite artists in your Spotify Wrapped? \u201cFor sure.\u201d<\/p>\n It feels punky to raise a child on her own, she says. \u201cI\u2019m not saying women should ditch fathers at all. I don\u2019t think that\u2019s smart, but I think that, for me, it was kind of nice to not have to deal with another person through the extremely upside-down period in the first year.\u201d<\/p>\n She took two years off from music after Tyko\u2019s birth to focus on building a connection with him. \u201cI didn\u2019t want to be a stressed mum while I changed his diapers.\u201d They spend a lot of time in nature<\/a> together; she dances with him. Does he like her songs? \u201cSometimes,\u201d she says. \u201cHe doesn\u2019t like to be interrupted in his vibe, so if I just put on music, he\u2019ll tell me to turn it off. Whatever it is, he\u2019s not impressed.\u201d<\/p>\n They have a calm life at home, she says. \u201cWe do so much travelling anyway, I try to keep his world small.\u201d He\u2019ll be going on tour with her around Europe from June \u2013 a full-circle moment for an artist who grew up on a bus. \u201cBut he\u2019s going to have a seatbelt.\u201d And an iPad? \u201cOn certain occasions. No smartphone though, ever.\u201d<\/p>\n Portrait: Daniella Maiorano\/ Is it tricky balancing motherhood with being a pop star? \u201cI don\u2019t really decide what I can do with my time any more. It\u2019s either: I\u2019m totally available for my son or I\u2019m totally available for my work. That\u2019s a little bit of a\u00a0juggle.\u201d She says it\u2019s like straddling two very different worlds. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of improvisation, a lot of being available, meetings that spark another conversation. It\u2019s just extremely different. But I also feel more excited about releasing an album than maybe I ever have because of that,\u00a0because I get to have both. It feels luxurious.\u201d<\/p>\n Our time is almost up. Robyn has to race off to a\u00a0photoshoot and then a fitting for the premiere of Charli xcx\u2019s film The Moment<\/a>. She\u2019ll go on to walk the red carpet in a cagoule, no trousers<\/a>, praising the mockumentary on Instagram after the screening. (It\u00a0does a really good job of showing the \u201cshitty, ugly\u201d side of being a pop star, it she tells me later, how \u201cembarrassing and depressing\u201d can be; creative people writing vulnerable songs who \u201chave to do shit that sometimes looks really, really bad\u201d.)<\/p>\n Before Robyn leaves, I wonder what she\u2019s looking forward to right now? The tour, she tells me. \u201cWhen I\u00a0write a song, the end goal is always: how is this going to be performed? What is the world I\u2019m building in someone\u2019s head? That\u2019s how I listen to music.\u201d She\u2019ll work out the details in April, she says, but she has got a\u00a0few ideas. \u201cI\u2019m still really tough, but I have a\u00a0tear [she points to her cheek] here. I want to be in a rock\u2019n\u2019roll pose, but I don\u2019t want to have a guitar.\u201d<\/p>\n I think about how great it is to have this sincere, serious but deeply silly artist back. Then she stands up, swings her arm in circles over her head as if she\u2019s\u00a0playing a solo on an electric guitar, and we say our goodbyes.<\/p>\n Sexistential is out now on Young records<\/p>\n
The Guardian. Sweater and jeans: Bless<\/p>\n