Breaking hearts and blowing minds:​ Robyn’s 20 greatest songs – ranked!

Photograph: Heji Shin/Sony Music Entertainment View image in fullscreen Famously unbiddable … Robyn. Photograph: Heji Shin/Sony Music Entertainment Breaking hearts and blowing minds:​ Robyn’s 20 greatest songs – ranked! As she tours the UK, we pick the best of an artist who defined the ‘sad banger’ – but also radiates joy and strength from her perfect pop songs 20. Don’t Fucking Tell Me What to Do (2010) Robyn has written and recorded more striking and melodically rich songs than this, but the opening track of Body Talk Part 1 might be this famously unbiddable pop star’s mission statement: an appealingly minimal bit of house music that dismisses a list of eye-rolling complaints aimed at everything from the music industry to uncomfortable shoes . 19. Giving You Back (1999) The first sign that Robyn was cut from a very different cloth to your average pop star: aged 19, she released Giving You Back, a beautiful but incredibly sad pop-R&B track about her decision to have an abortion. Her record label was horrified, refusing to release it in the US, but she stuck to her guns. 18. Fembot (2010) View image in fullscreen Genuinely funny music … Robyn performs in Austin, Texas, in 2019. Photograph: Rick Kern/WireImageOne of the things that sets Robyn apart is how genuinely funny her music can be, which brings us to Fembot, a track that satirises societal expectations placed on women a kind of lust-racked android – “initiating slut mode!” – and throws in a delightful candyfloss-hued chorus. 17. Blow My Mind (2002) Only released in Sweden and overshadowed , Don’t Stop the Music is a fascinating, interstitial album on which you can hear her gradual metamorphosis into Robyn 2.0. Blow My Mind was re-recorded for this year’s Sexistential, but the slower, less synthy original is well worth checking out. 16. Konichiwa Bitches (2005) “You wanna rumble in my jungle? I’ll take you on.” Robyn comes out swinging on a track named after the independent label she started after abandoning her major label contract. Hip-hop-inspired but clearly not trying to be hip-hop, it’s funny, don’t-mess sassy and appealingly weird. 15. Love Kills (2010) The Body Talk era – three mini albums in the space of 12 months, condensed into a compilation – offered listeners an embarrassment of riches. It wasn’t just the profusion of material, it was said material’s unerringly high quality: anyone else might have considered Body Talk Pt 2’s chattering Love Kills as a single. 14. Missing U (2018) Robyn’s reputation grew and grew during the eight years between Body Talk and its follow-up, Honey – Dancing on My Own in particular remained inescapable – which meant Honey’s more muted tone came as something of a shock.