Body Talk

The dance floor is a very tricky place. Few artists can produce tunes simultaneously suited for nightclub grinding and late night headphone explorations, but Swedish pop sensation Robyn is no ordinary pop artist: in 2010 alone, she released three EPs' worth of smartly crafted electro-pop. Picking up where her critically-adored self-titled 2005 album left off, Body Talk is a cherry-picked compilation of standout tracks from the three EPs, basically functioning as a 2010 Greatest Hits collection. Working closely with electro-pop producer/Teddybears member Klas Åhlund, who produced and co-wrote virtually every track, Robyn successfully bridges the gap between sonic exploration and simple synth-pop craft, layering piles of up-close synth buzzes and slick programming beneath her lightly-lisped, malleable voice. The relatively concise EPs nurtured a cohesive front-to-back listening experience; at 15 tracks, Body Talk suffers, like many compilations, from its exhausting length, but what it lacks in fluidity is made up for in quality. The rough edges have been trimmed away, putting focus on her most immediately catchy and interestingly produced tracks, notably the ubiquitous hookfest "Dancing on My Own" and "Don't Fucking Tell Me What to Do," a surprisingly bitter synth banger as insistent as it is exploratory. Another sign of her eclectic strengths: she manages to outflow the mighty Snoop Dogg on the boast-heavy "U Should Know Better." Body Talk cements Robyn as one of 2010's most thrilling and irrefutable pop packages.