Pop’s most influential innovator returns, hornier than ever
Robyn, Sexistential
★★★★
The word “mother” gets thrown around a lot these days, usually in reference to a female musician who has set the benchmark with a superlative, mould-breaking body of work. In 2026, the title fits Swedish innovator Robyn more than ever.
Her 30-year career has seen her evolve from teen hitmaker (1995’s Show Me Love) to groundbreaking pop auteur, a role she slipped into 20 years ago with Robyn, her first album released on her own label. 2010’s Body Talk changed the pop landscape, influencing Charli XCX among plenty of others, while 2018’s Honey was a more mature and sensual affair, with a diverse team of producers providing cohesive variation.
Her ninth album and first in almost nine years is called Sexistential, a term capturing her current horny yet philosophical mood. Now 46 and an actual mother to a four-year-old, Robyn has entered a new life phase, but she’s far from retirement – or relinquishing her desires.
Her long history of lyrical candour and iconoclastic brand of cool makes Robyn perhaps the only middle-aged white pop star who could pull off rapping about hooking up during IVF. The title track is a spare, bumping club cut that includes lines like “Then my doctor said, ‘Now, Robyn, who would be your dream donor?’/Well, Adam Driver always did kind of give me a boner”.
It’s unusually specific, with references to exclusive dating app Raya and scrolling Instagram while breastfeeding. But elsewhere, Robyn hews to the timeless universality of emotions captured in some of her most enduring tracks.
On lead single Dopamine, she’s well aware that the rush of an early-stage crush is more hormonal than real, but that doesn’t make it any less consuming (its candied synths and popping laser gun percussion simulate the sensation aptly). A blobby bassline revs and stalls at the start of It Don’t Mean a Thing, as though trying to will that sentiment into existence; Robyn later admits, “All of the cute little jokes that we had, I haven’t forgot ’em”.
Swedish super-producer Max Martin co-writes the sparkling Talk To Me, but most of the production credits belong to Klas Åhlund, who has helped sculpt Robyn’s signature sound since 2005. On Sexistential, as previously, songs are distinctive, but there’s a consistency to the production: tight, clean and controlled, with a frosted-glass finish.
Futuristic and sometimes cold arrangements are leavened with synths that burst like shooting stars; melancholy and hope exist as inseparable bedfellows. Robyn’s voice, breathy and close-mic’ed, always sounds like it’s purring into your ear, and she might be pop’s greatest conveyor of agony and ecstasy, finding endless expressions of each in different registers.
Both Honey and Sexistential are remarkable for their cohesion and here careful sequencing makes songs perform as part of a whole, improved by what precedes and follows them. It’s an impressive feat for an album clocking just under 30 minutes, including a bunch of demos from the past 15 years, retooled and purpose-fit.
Perhaps the most charming example is Blow My Mind, a reimagined version of her 2002 original, where lyrics like “Baby, ravish me, tear into my flesh/ Button down my shirt, go on make a mess” gain amusing new meaning when referencing her baby son.
Letting go of the idea that her kid should be the product of partnered love was painful for Robyn, but the messiness of conceiving via IVF while maintaining an active sex life provided Sexistential with its vulnerable core, contrasted with typically compelling production. Robyn’s circumstances might have changed, but her feelings are no less urgent, and the dance floor is still where she works them all out.
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