Robyn-The Rakamonie EP

It's 2008 and Robyn is back. Well actually she's been back since 2005 to the rest of the world but she's finally starting to make her way to this side of the Atlantic. The Rakamonie EP is a little appetizer for us yanks as her 2005 self-titled record is FINALLY coming out in the states this spring. Now first of all, Robyn is pop music, let's just get that out of the way. But as long time readers (lol) of this blog know that I have no aversion to pop music as long as it's not of the soul sucking variety.

I think the best way to describe Robyn is the euro-pop of Kylie Minogue hanging out with the sleaze-pop of Peaches. Robyn writes her own tunes and or/collaborates on them with others. As I've previously said, it seems the only good pop music is the stuff created by the artist which is so rare now-a-days. I think my friend Laura put it best when she said "I mean, can you even get a mental image of Fergie sitting down and writing a song?" Exactly.

So this EP has some amusing tunes on it, starting off with Robyn's anthem Konichiwa Bitches (you can tell some of these tunes are a few years old, I mean who's still making references to Chapelle's Show?). This is just a great sleazy pop song. Fun times as she raps/sings over a pretty sic beat. The song that originally got me hooked on Robyn is With Every Hearbeat, which appears here in acoustic version. To hear the original version and see the totally sweet video, click here. Isn't it nice watching a pop video without a bunch of half naked singing prostitutes dry humping the camera in a vain attempt to prevent you from realizing how shitty their song is? Speaking of sleaze the best track here is her cover of Prince's Jack U Off. It's just her and a piano (piano courtesy of Bjorn of Peter Bjorn & John) and it cracks me up every time I listen to it. It's sexy but hilarious. Seriously, everyone needs to hear this song. I can't wait to put it on a mix cd for someone. All this EP did was heighten my anticipation for when the full length come out. Which was the whole point.