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Robyn hints her new album will be out sooner than you think

We're no longer dancing on our own! Swedish pop star Robyn has revealed when she will release her next album.

Published: 20 February 2018 11:14 CET
Robyn hints her new album will be out sooner than you think
Robyn performing in Stockholm in 2015. Photo: Maja Suslin/TT

rRobyn slipped the announcement into a tweet so discreet it almost went by unnoticed.

She revealed the news to a fellow Twitter user who asked “Who decides your next album release date tbh.”

That tweet in turn was in response to Robyn's original tweet which said: “Thinking about space, if it's public space. Who decides what gets to be in public space?”

Robyn replied saying: “I do. Some time this year honey.”

The tweet was posted on February 7th, but apart from the fan in question, it took almost two weeks before the rest of the world noticed. But when it did, it got pretty excited:

“2018 just became worthwhile!!!” tweeted celebrity blogger Perez Hilton.

It will be the eight studio album by the Swedish mega star, who released her latest album 'Body Talk' more than seven years ago via her own record label Konichiwa Records.

The 38-year-old artist, whose full name is Robin Miriam Carlsson, had her start as a singer while still a teenager but later fell out with her label and went independent.

She has since achieved international success with a string of songs such as 'With Every Heartbeat' and 'Dancing On My Own', which bring an occasional R'n'B edge to synth-pop.

CLICK HERE to read more about Robyn on The Local.

CULTURE

New songs mark sixth anniversary of French star Johnny Hallyday’s death

Fans of the late Johnny Hallyday, "the French Elvis Presley", will be able to commemorate the sixth anniversary of his death with two songs never released before.

Published: 17 November 2023 09:05 CET
New songs mark sixth anniversary of French star Johnny Hallyday's death

Hallyday, blessed with a powerful husky voice and seemingly boundless energy, died in December 2017, aged 74, of lung cancer after a long music and acting career.

After an estimated 110 million records sold during his lifetime – making him one of the world’s best-selling singers -Hallyday’s success has continued unabated beyond his death.

Almost half of his current listeners on Spotify are under the age of 35, according to the streaming service, and a posthumous greatest hits collection of “France’s favourite rock’n’roller”, whose real name was Jean-Philippe Leo
Smet, sold more than half a million copies.

The two new songs, Un cri (A cry) and Grave-moi le coeur (Engrave my heart), are featured on two albums published by different labels which also contain already-known hits in remastered or symphonic versions.

Un cri was written in 2017 by guitarist and producer Maxim Nucci – better known as Yodelice – who worked with Hallyday during the singer’s final years.

At the time Hallyday had just learned that his cancer had returned, and he “felt the need to make music outside the framework of an album,” Yodelice told reporters this week.

Hallyday recorded a demo version of the song, accompanied only by an acoustic blues guitar, but never brought it to full production.

Sensing the fans’ unbroken love for Hallyday, Yodelice decided to finish the job.

He separated the voice track from the guitar which he felt was too tame, and arranged a rockier, full-band accompaniment.

“It felt like I was playing with my buddy,” he said.

The second song, Grave-moi le coeur, is to be published in December under the artistic responsibility of another of the singer’s close collaborators, the arranger Yvan Cassar.

Hallyday recorded the song – a French version of Elvis’s Love Me Tender – with a view to performing it at a 1996 show in Las Vegas.

But in the end he did not play it live, opting instead for the original English-language version, and did not include it in any album.

“This may sound crazy, but the song was on a rehearsal tape that had never been digitalised,” Cassar told AFP.

The new songs are unlikely to be the last of new Hallyday tunes to delight fans, a source with knowledge of his work said. “There’s still a huge mass of recordings out there spanning his whole career,” the source said.

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