Robyn Effectively Saves Pop With First Live ‘Missing U’ Performance: Watch
If you're tired of 2018's sloth-paced trend of trop house beats and too-cool-for-school progressions, Robyn — now 39 — is back to remind you that pop should be bold, a little brash and lively enough to spike your heart rate like a roller coaster's first drop.
The Body Talk Pt. 2 singer, whose last album debuted EIGHT YEARS AGO, dropped "Missing U" — pop's best track of 2018 by a mile — earlier this month. And now, a brand new live rendition released by the BBC, proves the track is even more electric live.
Filmed at Café Mambo in Ibiza, the first live "Missing U" set, which begins at 4:50 in the video below, is alive with dancehall tones, and lifts the crowd's spirits like a radio-friendly rapture.
"There's this empty space you left behind / Now you're not here with me / I keep digging through our waste of time / But the picture's incomplete," Robyn bemoans with the type of sad-but-still-grooving mood that made her 2010 track "Dancing on My Own" such a cult hit.
Robyn told BBC 1's Annie Mac on August 1 that the song is about losing a lover, and added that it's a tribute to the fans she's missed since dropping her last LP.
She said the track has “a sensuality and a softness to it that maybe wasn’t there before,” adding: "When I wrote this album, I was quite tired of myself writing sad love songs... but then I did anyway."
Robyn said she planned to release an album in 2014 but "didn't know what to say." Now, she's surer she's got a winning formula and emotion.
"Looking back at that now, it's OK to be sad," the singer later added. “Combining it with something bright and strong and powerful is finding your way out of it too.”
Robyn's next album and a corresponding documentary should drop later this year.
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