Hook & Reel: ‘Missing U’ is Robyn’s stunning return to form

Welcome to Hook & Reel, a series showcasing music that’s guaranteed to catch your ear.

Robyn knows pop – she knows it in ways that we as her listeners cannot fathom. She knows how to write hooks that exist in galaxies far from the top 40 paradigm but somehow write from the deepest depths of the collective human subconscious. These songs sound borne from Olympian gods of pop, sparkling and thunderous and overwhelming, but linger like tiny flames in the hearts of her fans. The magnificence of her music can’t be pinpointed to a select aspect: it’s everything from the starry-eyed synth chords that push forward like the inevitable passing of time through each of her records, and the way her honeyed voice, breathless and full of pain and wonder, pours itself across every thumping club-ready beat. It’s how each song is an experience, and shows the world a new way to look at life – whether it’s love, lust, longing or loneliness.

And because Robyn knows pop, she knows the exact formula behind her anthems that turn dance floors into catwalks, bedrooms into open mics and car rides into therapy sessions. So, it would make sense that, though she’s grown beyond the career-defining music of Body Talk, her first solo single in almost 8 years is a direct nod to that era. It would also make sense that the single, titled “Missing U,” is allegedly the closest thing her forthcoming album will come to old-school Robyn.

A gift to her fans that have been [im]patiently waiting for well over half a decade, “Missing U” is a breakup song with that signature Robyn twist – a different way of looking at that disorienting pain that comes with lamenting lost love. Robyn’s unable to forget her former beau, and she sees them everywhere she goes – holding what’s left of their love in her heart and projecting it onto the world around her. Like most of Robyn’s best music, the production and the way Robyn turns her voice around the melodies convey the song’s message even more so than her to-the-point songwriting. The glittering synth arpeggio barely hides its steeliness and discordance, like the pain that hits you in the gut even as you swoon over the love that once was. Robyn sounds as sweet as ever, but dazed, like she’s left in that post-breakup haze and unsure of where to even turn.

“Missing U” is a fantastic return to form for Robyn, but with an entire collection of tunes on the horizon (one of which is the effortlessly stunning “Honey”), it’s just a taste of the magic to come.

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