Robyn is back with her first full-length album in more than seven years, and she’s not easing into the moment. Sexistential, out soon, arrives with the kind of confidence that suggests its creator never stopped moving, she just took her time deciding how she wanted to land.
Speaking with Zane Lowe on Apple Music 1, the Swedish pop icon framed the album as a collision between weighty life shifts and unapologetic pleasure. The result, she said, is a project built on contrast: joy brushing up against uncertainty, desire meeting reality.
“I felt like I was crashing into myself again,” Robyn told Lowe, describing a creative period shaped by personal upheaval and renewed freedom. She wanted the album to “hit with a hard impact,” pulling together existential reflection with physical release. That tension, she explained, became the record’s emotional engine.
A Title Track That Says the Quiet Part Out Loud
The album’s name track, “Sexistential,” sets the tone early. Over clipped, minimal house production, Robyn addresses subjects rarely granted space in pop: IVF, sex after 40, and the awkward logistics of intimacy during medical treatment. The song is funny without winking and direct without apology.
Lines like “Fuck a Plan B baby, it’s no big deal” land less as provocation than documentation, a snapshot of adulthood lived honestly. When Robyn jokes about a “dream donor,” it’s not shock value so much as narrative clarity, folding humor into moments that are often treated with silence.
The track’s brevity hints at remix potential, but its impact comes from subject matter that feels overdue. Pop has no shortage of songs about desire; far fewer bother with how desire changes over time.
Reuniting With Max Martin, Without Repeating the Past
Another standout from the Sexistential era is “Talk to Me,” a sleek synth-pop cut co-written with Max Martin. It marks the duo’s first collaboration since “Show Me Love,” reconnecting Robyn with the producer who helped launch her career in the ’90s.
According to Robyn, the session wasn’t about chasing old formulas. Instead, Martin stepped in with precision, rearranging chords, re-centering the chorus, then stepped back. She finished writing the hook after he left the studio, following his guidance rather than mirroring his past work.
She described the experience as collaborative in the truest sense: brief, focused, and rooted in trust. The song itself leans into communication as erotic currency, pairing mechanical synths with emotional clarity.
Still Dancing, Still Curious
If Sexistential proves anything, it’s that Robyn hasn’t lost her appetite for risk. Her catalog has always thrived on tonal left turns, dancehall experiments, oddball collaborations, beachy detours, and this album continues that tradition without nostalgia bait.
There’s a sense, listening to her talk with Lowe, that Robyn still approaches pop like a club she plans to stay in until closing. She’s playful without being precious, reflective without retreating. The goofiness remains. So does the nerve.
Sexistential doesn’t chase relevance; it assumes it. After seven years away from the album format, Robyn returns sounding unbothered, curious, and very much in control of her own rhythm.
Interview courtesy of Zane Lowe on Apple Music 1. Listen on demand with an Apple Music subscription.
