I saw a tweet the other day about the “Robyn school of pop” and its graduates: “Run Away With Me” by Carly Rae Jepsen, “Style” by Taylor Swift (although I think “Getaway Car” is an even better example), “Supercut” by Lorde, and “we can’t be friends (wait for your love)” by Ariana Grande. The first thing I thought when I heard “we can’t be friends”, which is obviously the standout album track off of Ariana’s fantastic new album eternal sunshine (2024), is that it sounds like a Robyn joint, with its propulsive drum production and major progression. In fact, it sounds like Robyn’s biggest hit, “Dancing on My Own.”
Robyn has an almost Max Martin-esque level of respect among musicians and gay people while maintaining, also similarly to Max Martin, relative anonymity among the greater pop-listening populous. Songs like “Dancing on My Own” have reached icon status in the outer world via tasteful placements in important cultural moments, like the final scene in the pilot episode of Girls. But most of her discography, and the production style she pioneered, is still unknown to most listeners.
Robyn, born Robin Carlsson in 1979, is Swedish. Sweden has produced a weird number of pop heavy hitters for such a small country, including aforementioned Max Martin, who arguably shaped an entire era of pop music with his work on Britney Spears, NSYNC, and Backstreet Boys hits. Arguably, this trend started with the worldwide phenomenon that was ABBA, and has continued apace since; Max Martin has production credits on Taylor Swift’s chart-topping 1989 (Taylor’s Version) (2023) which is currently dominating Top 40 charts. In his book The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory (2016) journalist John Seabrook interviews Robyn’s collaborator Klas Ahlund, who credits Sweden’s agricultural culture for its songwriting prowess. “[In Sweden] you didn’t focus as much on your ability as a performer as you did in the structure and craft of the songs. Which is really not the case in the U.S., where your charm and your voice and your powers as a performer come immediately into play,” he explains. Robyn’s debut album came out when she was 16, and she has writing credits on every song.
Robyn’s most popular record, Body Talk (2010), was the first in which she introduces her signature style; “Hang With Me” is an illustrative example of this production technique. The song never feels like it comes to a boil, rather maintaining a just-under-the-surface quality that invites relistening; “we can’t be friends” also loops extremely well. The drum beat is very regular, electronic, and neutral, sounding almost more like a heartbeat than a percussive element. Most of the harmonic elements are synth-based, focused in the mid-range. The effect is a sparkly, almost euphoric feeling, which Robyn—and Ariana—pairs with lyrics that feel somehow both sorrowful and brimming with optimism for the future.
Why are we so drawn to this juxtaposition? I think the answer is actually quite simple: we want to feel resilient. Robyn’s music makes you “want to dance through tears”, to reach acceptance in the stages of grief. In her songs she is creating a brave new world, one in which pain very much exists, but alongside hope and joy. This attitude explains the persistence of her impact; we feel the possibility and openness in the music, and latch onto it. Robyn’s legacy is not only in production, but in the genre’s willingness to share pain and hope in the same breath, inseparable from one another in song as they are in life.
The music video for “we can’t be friends” offers another medium to portray this complexity, an almost frame-for-frame highlight reel reproduction of Charlie Kaufman’s cult favorite film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004).
Ariana heavily references the themes in the movie—loss, grief, regret, memory—across the entire record, but they’re especially prevalent “we can’t be friends.” Interestingly, her only departure from the source material is in that Peaches (her take on Kate Winslet’s Clementine) and the unnamed male lead, played by Evan Peters, both go through with the procedure, erasing their memories and ending up with other people in the final shot as they pass by one another unknowingly.
This intentional change has interesting implications on Ariana’s understanding of her own healing, and on her choice to produce the song in the vein of Robyn. Does loving someone necessarily mean letting them go? I think Robyn would say yes; “Dancing on My Own” certainly has an air of finality, of moving on (Robyn’s later work is heavily influenced by her own split from longtime partner Max Vitali). Whereas Eternal Sunshine sees the two main characters reunite, and in a cynical view potentially remake all their old mistakes, eternal sunshine posits that a clean slate cannot salve all wounds, and some people just can’t be together. Ariana’s own story sees her moving on from a failed marriage to a new relationship, if you read “we can’t be friends” literally, but it also could be about her difficult relationship with the public, who love and hate her in equal measure.
Robyn’s ethos of resilience and rebirth applies quite well to this situation; “we can’t be friends” speaks to Ariana accepting that two people can be happier apart than together, to her openness to new and better experiences after heartbreak. Ariana’s interpretation of Robyn’s songwriting and production style reveals a dedication to the essential form of the moving-on anthem, acknowledging the pain and the hope all at once.
First Radiohead and then Robyn?!?! So glad I got to meet you and learn about Record Store tonight!
"Why are we so drawn to this juxtaposition? I think the answer is actually quite simple: we want to feel resilient. Robyn’s music makes you “want to dance through tears”, to reach acceptance in the stages of grief."
This juxtaposition is the driver of so much music I love – and I can't believe I hadn't seen until now how vital Robyn's influence is to so much of that.