Robyn’s Tiny Desk Concert

NPR recently welcomed Swedish pop star Robyn to their office for a Tiny Desk Concert. She sings four songs, including one of her first hits, Show Me Love.

Every choice here is a tender one, down to the teardrop glued to her cheek. Every move is confident, yet comes from a place of vulnerability. Most of these arrangements play up the quiet desperation in her outsized songs, though on “Ever Again,” Robyn pulls off a magic trick by inviting us into the conversation, opening a broken heart to defiant resilience. “Light Up,” in particular, sounds revelatory, a glitchy synth banger reborn as a piano ballad. “I was looking at you like a mirror,” she sings with a catch in her throat, like an old memory surfacing for a split second, as she builds to a moment of emotional release.

Robyn was 16 years old when “Show Me Love” appeared on her debut album, Robyn Is Here. “For me, this is where it all started, in a way,” she tells the audience, understating the foundational impact the hit would have on late-’90s pop. Behind the Desk, its lite new jack swing slows to something more spacious and reflective, if no less flirtatious. She lets the music age with her.

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