Disco needs a new queen. While Madonna seems to be biding her time while crafting her next studio LP, Britney has retired, and Janet seems indifferent to releasing new music, there has been a definite lack of great dance diva music on pop radio. Sure, the crowded field of pop starlets has recorded tracks for the dance floor, but none has embraced it in the same way as, say, Jody Watley or CeCe Peniston.

Are these references dated? Sure, but diva dance-pop is a joyously throwback genre that harkens back to the darkly lit discotheques of the 1970s, where hits by Donna Summer or Diana Ross throbbed decadently. (We lost Gloria to MAGA.)

So who do we turn to for gloriously over-the-top camp dance-pop?

Robyn has been recording music for 30 years now. When American audiences were first treated to her charms, it was during the height of the teen-pop boom of the late 1990s, when the then-16-year-old Swedish singer crooned funked-up Scandi-soul cooked up by Max Martin and Denniz Pop. Though overshadowed by the likes of Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, she forged a smart, canny career by releasing records in Europe before breaking through to the American mainstream with classics “Dancing On My Own” and “Call Your Girlfriend” in 2010. She seemed to perfect the soulful, melancholic dance-pop ballad.

Those two mighty singles loom quite large in Robyn’s oeuvre, and if it feels like the last 15 years have been spent releasing songs with diminishing returns, that perceptible slump ends with the excellent Sexistential. As the title connotes, much of Robyn’s artistic interests these days lie in the carnal.

The album is a brilliant chronicle of a gifted artist, secure in her talents—a security and confidence that comes with a lifetime of racking up hits. It’s these pop smarts that lead the singer to open her record with “Really Real,” a rumbling, glittery tune that undulates like a woozy disco wave. Even better is the single “Dopamine,” which perfectly charts the mind-numbing rush of joy and ecstasy when feeling something overwhelmingly intense. Somewhat reminiscent of “Dancing On My Own,” the song hits that heart-swelling, lump-in-your-throat feeling when a perfect synth-pop song washes over you.

The title track swerves to house. The lyrics tell the story of a sexy woman on the prowl—the twist is that the woman is going through IVF. (She nonsensically raps about imagining Adam Driver being her sperm donor.) As her vocals careen through the thumping synth beats, she shares feelings of horniness and lust and maybe middle-age ennui (“Spent too much on Etsy / Expensive sh*t I don’t need / Bossy, bad, and bougie”). Her snarling delivery will remind some of electrotrash legend Peaches, as will some of the cheekily naughty lyrics.

Similar in tone—but not sound—is “Talk To Me,” a pounding anthem to phone sex. Inspired by the isolation around lockdown during the Covid pandemic, “Talk To Me” is a deceptively sprightly and breezy song that belies the fevered pleas of the chorus, “I’m coming fast, so guide me in / So, baby won’t you talk to me?”

For all of the erotica talk on Sexistential, the album’s most honest and candid moment isn’t one about hitting the sheets, but the rueful “Sucker For Love,” which transcends the punny title for an affecting song about embracing vulnerability and seeing emotion as a strength, not weakness. “You think I’m soft, like that’s a flaw somehow,” she sings, affirming her sensitivity, “I’m not that tough,” she concedes, “Who wants to be that way?”

Turns out that she exposes more than just herself on the tastefully cropped nude picture on the album cover: she opens up to her audience, emotionally raw and candid.

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