And I thought when I was signed that I was going to go to America and release a record and tour and do what they did, which was just the absolute other thing you could think of then what I ended up in. I came from this romantic childhood with my parents, making experimental theater, just doing things on their own terms.
![robyn dancing on my own ultimate guitar robyn dancing on my own ultimate guitar](https://cdn.ustatik.com/s3/ug.video.warm/preview/1/8/359974681/preview.jpg)
It's been bad enough for me and I've always been an alternative artist and I've had my own dealings with that, but. So it was a horrible place to start out in.
![robyn dancing on my own ultimate guitar robyn dancing on my own ultimate guitar](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/12/b8/d8/12b8d80e44b7955467cae3a7b562b91b.png)
I think pop music in the 90s was a really horrible place because it was still all of the old school, really bad structures from the old times in the music industry, but then also with a lot of money and a lot of commercial interests and just popular culture becoming such a big machine. I've always been protective of my freedom and I think how I started making music really forced me to do that because I was so miserable in this place, in the music industry that I ended up, which was the most commercial place in the music industry for a very, very long time. I have done that, a reversed journey with my music. And then we're here now in 2021, and you're considered one of the most innovative, influential musicians in your genre. You've started out one way, working with very disciplined Max Martin type producers, or literally Max Martin, should I see.
![robyn dancing on my own ultimate guitar robyn dancing on my own ultimate guitar](https://imagesvc.meredithcorp.io/v3/jumpstartpure/image?url=https://timeincsecure-a.akamaihd.net/rtmp_uds/4607804089001/201704/1858/4607804089001_5394362801001_5394362845001-vs.jpg)
And it's funny though, reading up about your entire career what struck me as really highly unusual is that you started out as this young child star and most people start their careers making alternative, weirder, riskier records, and then as their careers grow and they get more conservative, I think in the way that they approach music, you are the complete opposite I feel like. I sat down to talk with Robyn about one of her many incredible songs and how she took the steps to redefine a career that many thought was over, but was actually just getting started. Not only is it bursting with creativity and a wide range of influences, but it also redefined what a pop hit could sound like. Robin has made a career for herself in the pop landscape. She could make music in any way she saw fit. Her parents were artists who not only instilled in their daughter, a love of visual art, music, and theater, but also the idea that there is myriad of ways one can approach making art. And nine years after the song’s release, it finally reached Platinum status.Shirley: Robyn grew up in a family that didn't play by typical rules. Calum Scott’s cover snuck onto the Hot 100 in 2017. “Dancing on My Own” never appeared on the Hot 100 when it came out in 2010, but in the time since its release, it’s taken on a life of its own. Robyn still uses that move today when she does the song live, to the delight of audiences. Making out with yourself dance, I called it,” says Decida. But there is a moment of levity that comes when Robyn turns her back to the camera and feigns intimacy with another person by wrapping her arms around herself. The video shows a serious-faced Robyn standing in a harshly lit rehearsal space and a darkened club. “ was like the spirit animal of the Body Talk album,” Decida says, “and you can spot that in the video.” “There was a lot of angry energy,” she says, recalling how she channeled Rosie Perez’s dance sequence in the opening credits to Do the Right Thing.
![robyn dancing on my own ultimate guitar robyn dancing on my own ultimate guitar](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DiG7bH8WAAE0k__.jpg)
The year prior, while Decida was at her parents’ house for Easter, she found herself in her old childhood bedroom working on moves for “Dancing on My Own” while remembering her own experiences as a teenager. A video, choreographed by Maria “Decida” Wahlberg, followed in May. The song was officially released in June 2010, but it started making the rounds and breaking hearts that April. Watch Kelly Clarkson's Wistful Cover of Robyn's 'Dancing on My Own' It had like three chords.” They fattened things up during production, only to realize that they preferred the original and stripped it all back down, though they swapped the acoustic guitar for synthesizers with frayed edges and a beat that aimed for a TKO. What they came up with was an acoustic “campfire” version of “Dancing on My Own.” “In the beginning it was more of a country song, almost,” Berger recalls. “When she got to the studio, the first thing she said was, ‘Can we sit down and write a song on an acoustic guitar today? I’m so tired of writing over electronic beats and tracks,’” says Berger. In preparation for their session at his Stockholm studio, Berger made a slew of electronic tracks and beats for Robyn to write over, but she had other ideas. Producer Klas Åhlund was back in the mix after working on Robyn, but for one of the songs Robyn was toying with, she reached out to Patrik Berger, who contributed to 1999’s My Truth and the 2005 self-titled set, for a different perspective. In 2009, Robyn was in the midst of making the songs that would become the acclaimed 2010 Body Talk series.