Why the gays love Robyn so much
Last week I saw Robyn live in Boston. It was absolutely amazing, but I'm not going to write a lot about that. Instead I want to address why the audience there was at least 80% gay. Seriously, there were more queer dudes here than the average gay bar and even more than there were at the last Kylie show I went to. Apart from my husband and I, there were the two thirty-something guys holding hands to our left, the gaggle of slightly too drunk lads falling all over each other in front, and to our right was this precious gay teen with his dad (it melted my heart to see Dad trying to act like he was enjoying it as much as his son was).
I'm sure I first heard Robyn back in school when she had her global hit "Show Me Love", but it didn't register. My first real memory of Robyn was hearing her at a student union club in Linköping, when I was in Sweden visiting a friend. I remember just sitting and chatting with some drinks, then suddenly the strings kicked in on some unknown track and the entire room descended onto the dance floor. "What's this?" I asked my mate Jonas as he dragged me to join the others. "It's Robyn. 'Keep This Fire Burning'. You don't know it?" I'd never heard it before, but the next day I bought her CD Don't Stop the Music and became a lifelong fan.
To be fair, DSTM is a good album, but I can’t be much more emphatic than that about it. It wasn’t until she released her next record, 2005’s self-titled Robyn, that I properly took notice. It’s also when my own queerness found an affinity for her. If I can sum up being gay with one key emotion, as something beyond sex or sexuality, it’s the feeling of being different. And here was Robyn being different, just like me, and making me feel like I had a voice.
“Be Mine!” was on my iPod all year. Instead of typical pop songs about being in love or languishing in heartbreak, this song was about longing for someone who just wasn’t into you. It’s a universal queer story really — I can’t name how many times I've crushed on a straight guy for example. And then there was “Bum Like You”, which became the soundtrack to my summer. In another instance of me wanting someone who had no interest in me and who I desperately knew wasn't worth my obsession, she summed my feelings in her lyrics, “You don’t even look good / God, it ain’t right / But you’re starry eyed and out of sight”. Because really, Sébastien was kind of a dick and not even that hot, but he was just so cool and I wanted him so bad. (By the way, I’m so annoyed that you can’t find the original 2005 version of that song on Spotify, being replaced by a remix for her 2008 reissue, but you can hear it here).
Of course there’s also a queerness in her persona. Even in 2005 when she released her first record on her own label, her long blond pop princess hair was gone (the first scene in the original version of the “Be Mine” video, the first single from that album, shows her bald). Over time her look got more unusual. At my Boston show for example, she wore a dress with some sort of nipple pasties — I can just hear the “Project Runway” judges having a go at whatever designer made it. And of course for one of the most iconic Robyn looks, watch the “Call Your Girlfriend” video (and note that her dancing is also pretty weird).
All of this individuality and uniqueness is just so unusual in pop music, and in pop culture altogether. She’s kind of an outcast, just like me. She’s also defiant by being who she is despite pressures or expectations to be someone else. The fact is that she probably could be bigger than Beyoncé or Ariana if she acted a bit more normal, if she did more conventional songs (which of course she proved long ago that she can), and if she could be bothered to do social media. (I certainly remember being angry that "Keep This Fire Burning" never filled any floors in London, as it wasn't even released in the UK. And then it took three years for her Robyn album to make it outside Scandinavia.)
One of the standout moments from the Boston show, one that exemplifies what Robyn’s about, was her remixed and reworked version of “Don’t Fucking Tell Me What to Do”, in which she never even sung that line. But everybody in the room knew what it was and they revelled in it like it was their anthem.
This song reveals what is so inspiring about her, what makes her a gay icon. We know what it feels like for people to shrug their shoulders at us or ignore us. We know what it's like to be different. Being gay can be a lonely experience, and having someone like Robyn makes me feel less alone, like there's someone else living through this outcast experience, but flourishing in her own way through it. And she does all this without actually being gay herself and without seemingly trying to court gay fans, such as by putting half-naked muscled guys in her videos. She is a gay hero by just proudly being herself, and it's exactly the example I need to remind me that I can also proudly just be me and not let anyone fucking tell me what to do.
Liam Campbell is editor and chief photographer of Elska Magazine. He does not bring his proper camera to concerts but he often listens to Robyn during photoshoots.
