How's it hangin'?

This is the new single from Robyn, designed to give momentum for the release of her forthcoming album Body Talk Pt. 2 (or as I like to call it, Body Talk 2: The Petite Swedish Popstar With The Nice Voice Who Sh*gged Me) (editors note: She didn't. Obviously. It's an Austin Powers reference). Hang With Me appeared in acoustic form at the arse end of Body Talk Pt. 1, but this is the single version which is due for release. Please ignore Annie Mac talking all over the intro.



It's important to note the following:

1. Robyn is always amazing, and belongs to the exclusive "artists that thepopweb would happily hear sing the phonebook" club.
2. The eventual video probably won't have anything as brilliant as the dance moves from Dancing On My Own but, frankly, we can't see how anything will ever top that.
3. As much as Robyn is always amazing. This isn't quite as good as aforementioned Dancing On My Own.

We like the delicate yet idiosyncratic electronic backing track and the operator of the drum machine does a fine job in creating the all-important clap-along moments. Lyrically, the whole thing hangs together very well. The admonition "Just don't fall, recklessly, headlessly in love with me" is bloody brilliant and demonstrates in a flash why Robyn is such an important and eloquent songwriter. It hasn't got that iconic sad disco sound of Dancing or With Every Heartbeat but Robyn's voice, which just drips with sadness and emotion, creates the effect all by itself.

It's hard to pinpoint exactly what doesn't quite click for us with this song. All of the elements are there. We love the lyrics. We love the backing track, we love that whooshing effect when it breaks into the chorus. The song misses a strong middle-8 and could do with a crescendo-creating bridge into the chorus but that's a minor niggle. We suppose it's a classic case of loving all the constitutent parts and being a little dissatisfied when the whole just ends up being the sum of its parts. Pop is like that sometimes.

We would like to underscore all of this with the following conclusion, however. This isn't our favourite Robyn song: it's still one of the strongest pop singles to be released over the past six months. She's that good.