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Concert reviews Music

Robyn @ Sound Academy

ROBYN at Sound Academy on Wed, Jan. 26. Rating: NNNN


In a musical genre preoccupied with spectacle and alter egos, Robyn is an anomaly – a pop artist that ditched her major label and set out to crack the Top 40 on her own terms. Along the way, however, she became a leftfield idol with an obsessive cult fandom of girls and gays.

Those fans jammed into the Sound Academy Wednesday night to witness the Swedish performer’s second Toronto love-in in under a year (the first was a woefully under-attended festival gig at Molson Amphitheatre last summer). A thundering rendition of Max Martin-produced Time Machine opened the show and the tone for what was to come: an hour-plus club workout for both star and audience.

The set list rarely strayed from the dance floor, featured of all but two tracks off her recent Body Talk album and was book-ended with another Max Martin number: a near acapella sing-a-long of her ‘90s pop hit Show Me Love.

Robyn’s stage presence combines the self-confident swagger of a hip-hop star and the wistful earnestness of a pop singer. She’s cocky and direct, but unafraid act ridiculous – like when she pretended to make-out with herself during Dancing On My Own. Her lyrics are smart and introspective (and sometimes unsettlingly voyeuristic), but even on the sad songs the bass lines rattled the rafters.

Some pop stars rely on theatrics, but Robyn does not. The minimal stage design (her logo and two giant, glowing pinwheels) kept the focus squarely on the music, performed by two keyboard players and a drummer – with generous vocal support from her excitable audience, of course. “We don’t have our second drummer,” she said. “But we have you.”

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