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

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 by repeating the title over and over again.

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)

One 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 by depicting her as 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 by what came after, 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. But beneath its understated sound lurked incredible songs: the affectingly heartsore Missing U is a case in point.

13. Hang With Me (2010)

Originally written for collaborator Klas Åhlund’s then-wife Paola Bruna but rewritten – and equipped with a new chorus – for Robyn, Hang With Me is a Pet Shop Boys-influenced joy from the minute its raised-eyebrow lines appear: “Will you tell me once again how we’re gonna be just friends?” The acoustic version is great too.

12. Indestructible (2010)

Maximalist pop with a dash of disco-era Abba in the mix, the arrangement of Indestructible is based around waves of furious arpeggiated synths. The sound is striking, but it’s Robyn’s vocal that is the star: defiant in the face of past romantic failure, ready to throw herself headlong into another relationship.

11. Show Me Love (1995)

A Max Martin co-written global breakthrough hit for the teenage Robyn, Show Me Love is a superior example of R&B-infused 90s pop. Its sound feels a little dated – it’s a very long way from Dancing on My Own or Call Your Girlfriend – but the song itself shines through the gloss.

10. Talk to Me (2026)

This year’s Sexistential album offered a brief but incredibly potent return to the full-blooded idiosyncratic electropop on which Robyn’s reputation was built. It may last only 29 minutes, but every one of them is taken up with a full-bore banger, among them Talk to Me’s agreeably filthy paean to phone sex.

9. Who’s That Girl? (2005)

Over a spare but immense-sounding electronic backing, courtesy of the Knife – then in midst of their left-field super-pop Deep Cuts/Silent Shout imperial phase – Robyn ponders gender identity: “You be the girl and I’ll be the guy … would you love me any different?” Bold and thought-provoking with an absolute beast of a chorus.

8. Honey (2018)

Robyn openly admitted that returning to making music took time and effort, and Honey’s title track was apparently a struggle to complete – it involved sessions in Sweden, Paris and Los Angeles – but the labour was worth it: the beat is dancefloor-focused, but the song’s real power lurks in its slow-burning sensuality.

7. Do It Again (2014)

Robyn and Röyksopp’s collaborative EP ranged from experimentation – two tracks are nearly 10 minutes long – to Do It Again’s full-on pop. Ostensibly about love, its lyrics seem to keep breaking the fourth wall and commenting on the music (“wait for the buildup”), while the sound fizzes and throbs, filled with dramatic stops and starts.

6. Be Mine! (2005)

Apparently influenced by Kate Bush’s Cloudbusting, Be Mine!’s saga of jealousy and unrequited love – “I saw you at the station, you had your arm around what’s-her-name” – soars over an urgent string arrangement and a ticktocking drum machine. An improbable path to pop nirvana, but Be Mine! takes you there nonetheless.

5. Dopamine (2025)

Sexistential is the kind of album where it’s difficult to pick a best track – its standard never dips. But let’s go for single Dopamine and its perfect balance of the synthetic and the human: the lyrics explore the complex emotions around the most basic pop theme of all, falling in love.

4. Ever Again (2018)

The sleeper in Robyn’s latterday catalogue, the Honey album takes a while to work its magic on the listener. But magic is something it possess in abundance. Ever Again may sound relatively subdued, but the melody is a low-key earworm, and the blend of fatalism and resolve in the post-breakup lyrics quietly packs a real emotional punch.

3. Call Your Girlfriend (2010)

Call Your Girlfriend earns its spot in the pantheon of great pop songs about cheating, thanks to its blend of toughness – she’s absolutely had it with being the other woman – and empathy: “Tell her that the only way her heart will mend is when she learns to love again”. The music – fierce but sweetly melodic – matches perfectly.

2. With Every Heartbeat (ft Kleerup) (2007)

Show Me Love might have been her first hit, but With Every Heartbeat was Robyn’s real breakthrough, on which, in the company of electropop producer Kleerup, she staked out her own unique space: killer songs, edgy synths, a willingness to take risks – check the lengthy string breakdown – and an apparently effortless cool. It still sounds amazing.

1. Dancing on My Own (2010)

There’s a reason why Dancing on My Own is regularly listed as not just Robyn’s greatest song, but the best single of the 2010s full stop: even amid a catalogue filled with incredible songs, it has a lightning-in-a-bottle quality that sets it apart. Certainly, no other track of its era deploys the classic disco “sad banger” cocktail of euphoric music and lyrical misery to such powerful effect. The melody is glorious, the backing relentless and propulsive, the lyrics are beautifully drawn and amplified by the vocal’s shift between resignation and pleading: “I’m right over here, why can’t you see me?” is never not heartbreaking. It’s as perfect as pop music gets.