Robyn: “Sexistential” / “Talk to Me” Track Review

We know how to meet Robyn on her terms now: Her goofiness and her brazenness, her crystalline wisdom, the distinct sense that she still hits the club four nights a week. She can pull off maneuvers—forays into dancehall; a Snoop Dogg team-up that follows, roughly, the narrative structure of “Sympathy for the Devil”; a slice of breezy Balearica about a “cute place on the beach/They do really nice food”—that might get another singer laughed out of the room.

“Fuck a Plan B baby, it’s no big deal,” Robyn raps on “Sexistential,” the title track from a newly announced album, her first in more than seven years. “I’m already 10 weeks in maternity.” For the next two minutes, over twitchy, minimal house-pop, she recounts the unique travails of trying to get laid during IVF treatment. At one point, her doctor asks who her “dream donor” would be; Robyn answers, “Well, Adam Driver always did kind of give me a boner,” riotously closing the loop on her shared history with Lena Dunham’s Girls. “Sexistential”’s slightness befits the remixes that are sure to follow (paging Honey Dijon), but there’s real heft to these subjects—sex after 40, single motherhood—that are rarely addressed in pop music or just music, period.

“Sexistential” is one of two new songs out today, neither of which quite match the heady high of lead single “Dopamine.” “Talk to Me,” an ode to phone sex and healthy communication, is a co-write with Max Martin, who produced Robyn’s 1995 debut. Together they return to the bulletproof, almost mechanistic synth-pop of 2010’s Body Talk and their collaboration on its song “Time Machine.” The hook doesn’t soar like “All I want is a Delorean,” but I’ll end up playing “Talk to Me” several thousand times this year anyway. Robyn isn’t shy about stripping down or swinging for the rafters; she’s having her cake and smearing the frosting all over her body.