Dancing On My Own

"Dancing On My Own" is a song by Swedish singer-songwriter Robyn, released on 20 April 2010 as the lead single from her fifth studio album, ''Body Talk Pt. 1'' (2010), the first in her ''Body Talk'' series. "Dancing On My Own" was produced by Patrik Berger, co-produced by Robyn, and mixed by Niklas Flyckt, with Robyn and Patrik sharing writing credits. The song's stark mid-tempo electropop version from her album was the first version of the single released followed by a layered mid-tempo synth-pop edit designed for radio and a downtempo piano ballad recording for ''Radio 1's Live Lounge – Volume 5'' later that year. It depicts a female protagonist in a crowded club just before last call who is dancing on her own while watching her ex-boyfriend who she sought out dancing with and embracing another woman, pondering confronting him for the last time before her time runs out. The song was inspired by situations Robyn observed while on her previous tour then clubbing throughout Stockholm, her favorite "inherently sad gay disco anthems", and the dissolution of her engagement.

Critics praised "Dancing On My Own" as another bittersweet anthem for her song canon, with some ranking it as the greatest song of the year and eventually, the decade. Several reassessed its influence as Robyn's signature song, a gay anthem, and "the ultimate sad banger" of the poptimist movement, with ''Rolling Stone'' ranking her original album version at number 20 on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time in 2021. "Dancing On My Own" became Robyn's first number one in her native country following its live premiere on Swedish TV show ''Sommarkrysset'' and also reached the top ten in Denmark, Norway and the United Kingdom later that month. Frequent collaborator Max Vitali directed "Dancing On My Own" Rosie Perez-inspired music video, first released on 21 May 2010, that showed Robyn portraying the protagonist in the song's lyrics in various club and rehearsal settings. The song later earned a nomination for Best Dance Recording at the 53rd Annual Grammy Awards and was awarded Best Song at the Grammisgalan in Sweden. All three of her song's versions were promoted well into the following decade through multiple televised and streamed live performances and inclusion on many films, television series, and commercials.

"Dancing On My Own" was covered by numerous artists and bands, with several releases, especially of Robyn's downtempo version. Inspired by the downtempo Southern rock ballad cover of it performed (but not released) by band Kings of Leon, a downtempo AC ballad by ''Britain's Got Talent'' contestant Calum Scott was most prominently released on 15 April 2016. Calum's cover was a moderate sleeper hit throughout Europe following substantial success in the UK, where it went viral on streaming services despite little initial radio play. Critical reception to it was polarized, with Robyn praising the cover but prominent music journalists comparing it negatively to her original. The first major test release by controversial London-based AI algorithm-based A&R start-up ''Instrumental'', its formula in finding Calum and releasing his cover would go on to revolutionize major label signing based on early Internet engagement. An accompanying music video was released on 15 April 2016 that received over 400 million YouTube views in four years.

Background and creation

Deep into sessions one "dark" week of November 2009 in Stockholm with longtime collaborator Klas Åhlund, Robyn's "stormy" engagement to Swedish MMA fighter and contemporary visual artist Olof Inger was starting to fray. "Tired of the broken heart", Robyn returned to writing about "sad love", a theme that remained prevalent in her work because it was universal, yet continued to give her fresh ideas. After launching her own pop-up club series in Hornstull Beach, Söder in January 2010, ''Konichiwa Bitches goes Tutti Frutti'', modeled after Christian Falk's ''A Love Supreme'', Robyn became inspired by DJing, clubbing and people-watching throughout Stockholm. Recalling how much the "dance world" had changed during the five years she spent promoting ''Robyn'' (2005), especially in America, Robyn realized it was finally ripe for exploitation: "It's really going to have its time now and not just be looked upon as kitsch." Conceptualizing club culture, Robyn created narratives for past patrons she had seen from situations she had witnessed, including their "expectations" for the night to "meet that person", reach a "good high", or experience "some kind of emotion", revisiting stories from Olof on his time as a doorman describing how they'd act then reminiscing on her time in New York City in 1997 promoting '' Robyn Is Here'' as a "lonely misfit teenager shoulder-shimmying alone in a gloomy corner" on Club Vinyl's "last ever" Saturday night and Sunday afternoon, The Shelter, and the "near mythological" Body&SOUL, respectively. Robyn came to see clubs as "an important place for our generation—almost like a church or a place where we go to experience something that's bigger than ourselves", feeling it wasn't just "cool" but "important", and even "utopian", that "in the middle of all these other people doing the same thing" she could dance in her "own space" on her "own terms", wanting "to make a song called 'Dancing On My Own'" but still unsure "what it was going to be about". Following the example of the "inherently sad, gay disco anthems" she loved, including tracks by Donna Summer with Giorgio Moroder, Sylvester, Billy Idol's "Dancing with Myself" (1980), Ultravox's "Dancing with Tears in My Eyes" (1984), and Sheila E's "A Love Bizarre" (1985), the song's storyline eventually came to her, picturing "the god-awful feeling of a woman who is watching her ex get with someone new at a club".

"With an idea of a chorus in her mind," Robyn wanted to work further with Åhlund but couldn't stop "toying" with the song on her own, eventually reaching out to prior collaborator Patrik Berger for a "different perspective". Patrik had prepared for weeks before their first session at his Stockholm studio with a "slew of electronic beats and tracks for Robyn to write over". All of this was for naught as the first thing she said was, "Can we sit down and write a song on an acoustic guitar today? I'm so tired of writing over electronic beats and tracks." Their first result was an " acoustic 'campfire'" demo with three chords in the manner of a country song. The chorus came first quickly, followed by the chords and parts of the melody. After days of "fatten ng..up" that demo, the two of them realized "...they preferred the original and stripped it all back down" again. Patrik, facing pressure from Swedish music industry insiders "telling him what he should do" with the song, decided for the first time that "rather than following the pack", he'd write and produce the song "how he wanted to", following a new group of "sonic scholars" in the country breaking away from Max Martin's "school of pop". Swapping "the acoustic guitar for synthesizers with frayed edges and a beat that aimed for a TKO," Patrik went "raw and gritty", "aiming for a 'window' of song" that would capture its "commercial appeal without destroying" its "myster .

With this third demo, entitled "Right Over Here", compared by Robyn and critics to Glasvegas' " Geraldine" (2008) and later heard in part in 2018 at the Red Bull Music Academy in New York, Robyn and Patrik had finally settled on a blueprint for the final track. A "lot of time" was spent subsequently on "the individual components of the song: the drums, the bass and the pounding staccato it starts with". Lyrically, Robyn and Patrik were "super picky" and took even longer. Obsessively trying to come up with the right words to not "sugar-coat the experience" of all of the "messy moments of rejection," they both wanted "uncomfortably honest" lyrics designed to have each phrase read like a "little poem". "Weeks" were spent "texting each other...on lines" with "a couple of days penton each" that filled a "handful of notebooks" by the end, with one entirely "scrapped", as "every single word needed to feel right." Soon after completion of the song, Robyn became "conflicted" about having her collaborators and friends hear it. Recalling her excitement upon initially "sending the demo to the record label and telling them I thought we had a good single", its themes of "nostalgia and sentimentality" in retrospect came across like a "teenage version" of herself she was "happy to let go of". Robyn ended up deciding to include the song on ''Body Talk Pt. 1'', working through "difficult" early promotion as the themes didn't "always feel true" to her.

Many years later Robyn and Patrik realized their leaps of faith with the song were worth it. After "taking a step back from what she'd created", working through "a lot of therapy" where she "worked on ..and healed" herself, then felt the "song was talking back to her" when "thousands of fans" sang it back to her on her 2019 tour when she "cut the song just before the chorus", she realized the song had "moved on from its beginnings" and was no longer "conflicted" about "playing it live", feeling it had become "something that took on meaning for a lot of people in different ways". Meanwhile, Patrik was reaffirmed of his decision to break from Max Martin's formula despite "ang r from many of his peers in Sweden, as it became "one of those songs where people came up to im talking about how much it mattered."

Composition and release

"Dancing On My Own" was composed by Robyn and Patrik Berger. Featuring "elements of 'many different worlds'" she loves that make her "proud" of the track, including "80s rock ballads" and "queer electronica", with the goal of releasing a record that would meet the standard of Prince, two versions of the midtempo ballad were released for the album then for radio, where "everything, bar Robyn's vocal, is electronic". A third, downtempo, 'pared down', piano-based version, recorded from her performance on 16 June 2010 on BBC Radio 1 was then released separately from the project on ''Radio 1's Live Lounge – Volume 5'' on 22 October 2010. Both electronic versions keep a tempo of 117 beats per minute in common time, which NPR Sam Sanders implies was arranged deliberately as it was "situated ..pretty close to what scientists say is the preferred walking tempo for humans". All three versions are in the key of G major, following an "immediately familiar one-five-four" chord progression of G–D–C and traditional ABABCB structure except for one pre-chorus line following its first verse and one outro line of a portion of its chorus following its choral refrain that concludes the song, with Robyn's vocals spanning from D₄ to E₅.
The "brutal", "direct", and " minimal" electropop album version, the first version of the song released, leaked on approximately 19 April, then was released as a digital single the next day, followed by its official release on 1 June 2010 as ''Body Talk Pt. 1'''s lead single. Its focus is on its "relentless jackhammer" "iconic throbbing bass backbone" synth, made using the Korg Mono/Poly (MP-4) analog synthesizer. That is followed by the use of a "kick drum" on beats "1 and 3" and a "snare" on beats "1 and 4", both of which last through the entire song, accented with "eight repeated, robotic, hihat quavers halfway through eginning at 1:57 ..little clave tinkles in the verses :36and the odd crash cymbal". A "sad piano motif" accompanies the song's "middle 8", the "one moment in the track when you're allowed to pause", then " t 2:45..the pause is broken by 16 snare hits, all at maximum volume, with no crescendo or dynamic," followed by a return to the choral refrain that closes out the song. USC musicologist Nate Sloan highlighted the "miracle" of the "lyrics ..sparseness" and the "six seconds of silence between each line in the verse" which he observed "wasn't a lot of time in the abstract" but "eons" on a pop song, which NPR's Sam Sanders felt Robyn left to let the listener "live in that space – to give you time to insert all of your emotions and stories and feelings into the seconds between the lines". The song's second synth-pop version, designed for radio and first heard accompanying its music video when it premiered on 21 May 2010, was released as a bonus track to ''Body Talk Pt. 1'' iTunes release on 11 June 2010. It mixes those elements at substantially different levels and most noticeably adds "an extra arpeggiated synth through the intro and the verse". James Montgomery of MTV News described the radio version as "a computerized kaleidoscope of chippy, chiming blips and piston-like drums." ''Vanyaland'' Michael Marotta pointed out a small bell effect resembling last call that rings at the climax of the song in both electronic versions' middle 8, interpreting its inclusion as an indication the protagonist's time had run out in her last effort to gain notice from the ex-lover.

Robyn's "love letter" to Stockholm as indicated in her "favorite lyric" describing its weather in winter, a "big black sky over ertown", the song's "bittersweet, voyeuristic narrative" is of "a woman dancing alone in a crowded club while her ex and his new lover look on", with a deliberate "bait and switch" of production that sounds in its opening "life-affirming" but in reality is backing what the listener soon realizes is a "bleak, wounded" "breakup song" lyrically, a deliberate "juxtaposition" "of light and dark at the same time" whose "magic" Robyn explained to Kindness at Red Bull Music Academy is what she's "drawn to when hemake music", and is "much more satisfying" to her than just one feeling or the other, which she'd found "predictable" and "boring". NPR's Sam Sanders felt these contrasts of "female empowerment through angst" in "lesser hands ..might be confusing" but " en Robyn does it, it's human." Outside its story of the "total outsider" in "love sickness" "in the middle of the club" who's still "going to take care of herself and have a good time even though she's pretty dramatic and crazy", she left the rest of its narrative up for interpretation, explaining to Z100's JJ Kincaid that revealing every detail wouldn't have been "as interesting", preferring writing that brings out "emotion ...in a way that enables the listener to ..connect to he songin their own way".

Music video

The music video for "Dancing On My Own" premiered via Robyn's official Vimeo account on 21 May 2010 and was released to YouTube on 28 May 2010, accompanied by its radio version. Directed by Max Vitali (who previously worked with Robyn on the second music video for her 2005 single " Be Mine!"), and choreographed by longtime collaborator Maria "Decida" Wahlberg, the music video was produced by Nils Ljunggren and HSI Productions, with filming by Erik Sohlstrom and editing by Johan Söderberg and Johan Wik. Wardrobe, hair, and makeup were done by Naomi Itkes, Ali Pirzadeh and Linda Öhrström, respectively.

According to Robyn, Max, and 'Decida' from a behind-the-scenes black-and-white preview posted to Robyn's website the day before its release, it's meant to be a visually "simple" yet "still...atmospher c "performance video" aesthetically connected to her then "upcoming gigs and tour" that depicts "being sad on a dancefloor" in a "rave" or club" where other "people are dancing" and Robyn's choreography is meant to "ringout" a "pissed off ..energy". Robyn portrays the protagonist depicted in the song's lyrics while lip-syncing its lines in three scenes in the center of the club's dance floor, in a dark hallway of that club and in a separate "harshly lit rehearsal" setting. The microphone stand with no microphone in the latter setting ''BBC
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