{grate 3} Cringing at her incomprehensibly disastrous fashion faux pas
— a bulky baby-blue windbreaker with spurts of hideous red synthetic fur — you
can only hope that Robyn’s plea for ridicule ends on the cover of her
self-titled album. Regrettably, five minutes into the album leaves you
wondering how this Europop singer was ever marketed as the world’s next
high-“E”-albeit-equally-badly-dressed Christina Aguilera.
Merely judging from the track’s title, “Konichiwa Bitches”
is a ridiculously unintelligible and downright embarrassing appropriation of
Gza’s catchphrase on a played-out “Chappelle’s Show” skit. Although the jerky
synthesized beats might sway some analog-hungry electronic fans, Robyn’s
alleged lyrical aptitude is nowhere to be found in “You wanna rumble in space /
I put my laser on stun / And on tha north pole I’ll ice you son … / You wanna
thrilla in Manilla / You’ll be killer bee stung.” You don’t have to be a
feminine activist to pout your lips with the thought of Robyn’s tragic
rendition of pop culture’s latest stereotypical dumb blonde.
Fortunately, Robyn’s cover of the Teddybears’ dancehall jam
“Cobrastyle” is considerably tolerable enough to redeem the
pop singer from her humiliatingly distasteful tracks. Like most of the album’s
songs, its beat is the love child of Norwegian pop singer Annie’s “Heartbeat”
melodic confections and Swedish siblings the Knife’s
warped-space/time-continuum trance. You can also applaud Robyn’s offhand charm
in “Bum Like You,” a contradictory retake of TLC’s “No Scrubs”’ she-woman
mentality (“Your car’s a dump and you’re broke / but that’s all right … / I
would knit you mittens and make you pie”).
If you’re just looking to hit up a sweaty dance club, you’ll
appreciate Robyn’s sugary-sweet sound; otherwise, you’ll find that her
less-than-impressive lyrical material has not quite reached maturation and is
as tacky as her revolting fashion-disaster ensemble.
