Less than 10 years later, Robyn had left all that behind, made her own label, Konichiwa Records, changed up her image and started making pop with an edge.
" Show Me Love" and " Do You Know (What It Takes)" were in line with the rest of the teen pop from those days, adjacent in sound to the Backstreet Boys and 'N Sync and Britney Spears. In the late 1990s, when she was still a teenager, Robyn had two U.S. People finding community in a song all about being solo. The ones who have used it to get through not just breakups, but cancer, or death, or a lot more, who love that decadent drum fill toward the end more than life.Īll stories of juxtaposition. People who insist it can be a queer anthem: " Is she singing 'I'm not the GIRL you're taking home' or 'I'm not the GUY you're taking home'? Who knows! Maybe she MEANT it that way? ROBYN IS A GENIUS," they said, more or less.
People who have played it for hours in one sitting, or kept it on repeat for a road trip hundreds of miles long, or made it the last dance at every house party they've ever thrown. There were the DJs who spin it at wedding receptions, knowing it will get everyone on the floor. When I decided to make "Dancing on My Own" my pick for NPR's American Anthem series, I went to social media and asked anyone who saw the request to send me their stories about the song. Contrary emotions wrapped up in one package, happiness and sadness living together in a groove: Everything about this song is a juxtaposition.