Robyn, Robyn (Konichiwa/Interscope, 2007)

Listen: “Be Mine!”

Robyn’s recent performance in an intimate Chicago club illustrated the glaring, brilliantly bipolar nature of her kinetic dance-pop. She sang to some tracks, yeah. But she also busted furious karate moves on stage, and wore a near-grimace most of the night that suggested these songs were still a rush for her to sing, even though it’s taken more than a minute for Robyn to drop domestically. Some of her ballad material was too overwrought; this is true. And “Jack U Off” was an off-putting novelty, like the set closer at Euro-Branson. Robyn is still discovering how to ride the knife’s edge that songs like “Konichiwa Bitches” and “Cobrastyle” have sharpened since her days as a Max Martin vessel. Because when she opened with “Cobrastyle,” and her two (!) live drummers started pounding away on their stripped-down kits, and she went into her sparring maneuvers on stage, Robyn’s bristling anger and brash stage persona were a power source unto themselves, a generator powering a new movement between that of superficial dance-pop and the combined ethos of punk, indie electronic, and European dance music that Robyn’s music attests to equally.

She performed “Be Mine!” live, too, for which one of the drummers strapped on a Fender Stratocaster. And as he picked out the song’s steady central chord structure, and Robyn built to its chorus — “‘Cause you never were/And you never will be mine…” — you could feel this song rising to its Clarksonian, “Since U Been Gone” moment. It has the potential to be that triumphant, to transcend mere dance-pop and become a true populist anthem. But Robyn and her band never quite broke it to that level, choosing to remain on the surface, just slightly aloof from their big closeup. It’s how her music stays not one thing and not another, and how she keeps us wanting more. Tantalizing is the right word for Robyn. And that, after all, is what pop music should be, too. — Johnny Loftus

Tags: Robyn, Konichiwa Bitches, Cobrastyle, Be Mine!, Kelly Clarkson, Fender Stratocaster