With her new single 'Missing U,' Robyn reclaims her place as one of pop music's most influential artists
In 2013, Robyn met an automated version of herself. A group of student engineers in Sweden were building a robot that approximated the Swedish pop star’s freewheeling dancing style, and ever the technophile, she showed up herself to observe its progress. She looked on as the diminutive and half-finished machine waved its arms and undulated with an ecstatic tremor. “The robot is cute,” she said hesitantly. “I think that it’s really good that it has a vulnerability to it.” Her words about the synthetic imitator could apply to several fleshier ones as well. It’s been eight years since Robyn released her last album, “Body Talk,” and in the interim, it seems like a whole generation of inheritors has emerged, each one specifically engineered to mimic and embellish her once-unique sensibilities. At first glance, it might seem like Robyn’s heartfelt and brilliant new single, “Missing U,” fits squarely into the current era of bright synthesizers and depressive lyrics. But R...