Apparently Robyn thinks she’s Sade, what with the way she’s been cruelly holding out on releasing a new album (It may have only been five years since Robyn first hit stores, but that’s like, what, a thousand lifetimes in pop music time). Hopefully, though, the wait may be over sooner rather than later, as a possible early preview of the still-untitled LP has made it’s inevitable way to the Internets recently.
Previously sampled in it’s early stages via a brief YouTube clip back in December, the Diplo-helmed “No Hassle” casts Robyn as a patois-adopting “dancehall queen”, turning heads and garnering various shout-outs with the way she winds her body to the DJ’s hypnotic reggae-pop groove; all that she asks is that you don’t bother her while she’s lost in the rhythm’s “boom boom boom”.
Compared to Robyn’s previous catalogue highlights, “No Hassle” does seem a bit lacking in “wow” moments (Diplo’s production provides a mostly basic exercise of the dubstep/ dancehall sound), but that’s neither here nor there considering it carries a sturdy amount of pop hookiness and, hell, is A…NEW…ROBYN…JAM.
Swedish blog-pop royalty Robyn has popped her remixing cherry with this “Rakamonie” twist on El Perro Del Mar’s possessing Love Is Not Pop highlight “Change of Heart”, decorating it with her vocals and a low-key electro-pop touch that basically makes it sound like one of her own records.
To our ears, the original, with it’s marvelously-executed, retro-baked allure, is still the better version, but Robyn does a solid enough remixing job on “Heart” to inspire mild anticipation for whatever tinkerings she may provide for other artists’ catalogues in the future.
Nothing more but a bunch of cover songs that have been bubbling around in recent weeks. Enjoy!!
Tanya Morgan “Breakadawn”/ Skillz & Colin Munroe “Baby Phat” (De La Soul Covers)
Two highlight entries pulled from Mick Boogie & Terry Urban’s latest mixtape collabo, a multi-artist tribute compilation to De La Soul’s twenty-year strong legacy entitled Le Da Soul (download the full set here): the MJ-sampling groover “Breakadawn” see the unmistakably DLS-influenced Tanya Morgan cleverly weaving in their own spin to Pos and Trugoy’s script, while Skillz (assisted by longtime MM fave Colin Munroe) gives the curvalicious female sect a nice shout-out (“I like chicks thicker/ Imagine me dating a lil’ stick figure”) in a revamp of “Baby Phat”.
Ellie Goulding & Erik Hassle “Be Mine (Robyn Cover)”
In which two current blog-pop phenoms take a break from their respective on-the-rise careers for an acoustic guitar-backed duet rendition of Robyn’s 2005 single (best known for it’s drama-tastic spoken word bridge and one of the most heartwrenching opening lines ever put to pad-”It’s a good thing, tears never show in the pouring rain/ As if a good thing ever could make up for all the pain”).
Of course, for those who have heard Robyn’s own stripped-down take, Goulding and Hassle’s re-read won’t be that much of a mind-blower, but oh does their vocals meld beautifully when harmony time comes around.
True, the folk-y swing that Irish alt-rockers Snow Patrol build to on the hook of this Top 5 Madonna smash kind of feels pathetic when compared to the explosive epiphany Maddie brought to the table, but we must be honest with at least this much: hearing “Light”’s heavy verses under the band’s earnestly melancholy arrangement catches a pleasant lullaby-like mood we wouldn’t mind being soothed with at the end of a long and hard work-day.
Though England-born indie pop-punk/ soul-ster VV Brown was given a major hype push earlier this year when she was recognized as a Top Ten finalist in the BBC’s “One To Watch” poll, Sounds of 2009, she has so far struggled in earning much pop chart love (Out of four singles released, only one has managed to chart in the UK Top 40).
Still, we say keep following her. Not only because her critically-acclaimed debut album, Travelling Like The Light, has plenty of quirked-out, retro-pop/ rock/ soul goodies to offer (contrary to radio support), but also because she’s proven to be a hoot with her on-the-fly YouTube cover creations (check out her renditions of “Crazy In Love”, “Day N Nite” and “Best I Ever Had”).
There’s nothing silly about her take on the Rolling Stones’ 1978 classic “Miss You” though, which trades in the original’s bluesy-disco strut for a despair-drenched Southern-fried soul vibe.
Mumford & Sons “I’m Not Alone (Calvin Harris Cover)”
Part of the same London folk scene that has birthed the likes of Noah and The Whale and Laura Marling, the four-piece Mumford & Sons caught plenty of ears with their debut single, “Little Lion Man”, an enrapturing cut seething with self-loathing (“I really fucked it up this time/ Didn’t I my dear?”) and an edge-of-apocalypse hoedown rattle.
That same pluck-heavy furor is called upon for their surprisingly decent Live Lounge rendition of Calvin Harris’ ’90’s-dance tribute “I’m Not Alone”, their woodsy slant working wonders in an impressive mimicking of the same soft vocals/ loud music dichotomy that made the original so enticing.
Toronto-based indie label Paper Bag Records turned seven this month (Happy birthday PB!!), and to help celebrate this event, they’ve unleashed the covers compilation, The Seven Year Itch, for free from their site.
Amongst it’s twelve-song tracklisting, plenty of fascinating grabs can be found (including Josh Reichmann’s rustic campfire take on Bat For Lashes’ “Daniel” and CFCF’s ’80’s new wave & vocoder-baked treatment of OMC’s quirky international fave “How Bizarre”), but the one perched atop our highlight picks would have to be a cover of Andre 3000’s The Love Below-housed tribute to the classy female, “Behold A Lady”, as handled by Canadian-born noise-art eccentric Slim Twig.
Sludging up the original’s lean digi-funk with a dense garage stomp and kooky, vampiric vocals that sound like they’re being emitted from a broken-down loudspeaker, Twig charmingly re-brands the song with a brush of his own unique “ice cold” cool, providing belated props to an oft-overlooked Below gem.
Pixie Lott “When Love Takes Over (David Guetta/ Kelly Rowland Cover)”
Where David & Kelly’s original aimed to split open the heavens from it’s opening moments with all of it’s big dance diva grandeur, this Live Lounge version by English singer-songwriter Lott goes for a more organic lift-off.
Opening on a slow and meditative tip that plants a pleasant spotlight on the grainy squiggles of soul embedded in Pix’ pipes, the remake makes a better play at illustrating love taking over, growing more and more bold with each added layer of (mostly Coldplay-nicked) instrumentation and upgraded tempo notch until it explodes in a fireworks-like display of romantic euphoria.
First presented as a chugging, acoustic rock ballad on the original Swedish edition of Robyn’s critically-slobbered over self-titled triumph before being updated into a sharper, Euro-dance pop confection for the album’s international drop, “Bum Like You”, Robyn’s canny “I’m in love with a scrub” ditty, has now been re-worked yet again for inclusion on, wait for it…ONE MORE RE-RELEASE of the three-year old project (Talk about stretching out a good thing).
This time around, Robyn isn’t found alone in her questionable (yet so relatable) infatuation with average-looking deadbeats; featured guest Snoop Dogg pays her back for her work on the Fyre Department remix of “Sensual Seduction” from earlier this year, instilling himself within “Bum”’s clubby fizz for a little hook harmonizing before relating his own inability to eject a certain mooch-ess out of his heart: “You got no job/ No life/ It’s so wrong/ But it’s so right…”.
It’s an okay additional thirty seconds of new material that Robyn fanatics will surely eat up, but all these revisions don’t hide the fact that as much as she’s universally adored, the singer really needs to finally put Robyn to bed and start working on the next full-length project.
As nice as it is to get free music, think of how much better your soul would feel if you purchased it the old-fashioned way.
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(MP3 posts are for promotional and/ or previewing purposes only; if any artist or their representation wish to have the links removed, contact me and I will happily comply!)
Apparently Robyn thinks she’s Sade, what with the way she’s been cruelly holding out on releasing a new album (It may have only been five years since Robyn first hit stores, but that’s like, what, a thousand lifetimes in pop music time). Hopefully, though, the wait may be over sooner rather than later, as a possible early preview of the still-untitled LP has made it’s inevitable way to the Internets recently.
Swedish blog-pop royalty 
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