Robyn releases new album Sexistential – but what does the title actually mean?
Robyn gets Sexistential. (Rick Kern/Getty)
Robyn gets Sexistential. (Rick Kern/Getty)
Swedish hitmaker Robyn is currently promoting her forthcoming album, Sexistential. But what does that even mean?
The 46-year-old pop icon, whose real name is Robin Miriam Carlsson, is best known for her 2010 hit “Dancing On Your Own.” The bittersweet song has become an LGBTQ+ classic, and tells the emotive story of a woman watching her former lover dancing with a new partner.
She is set to release Sexistential, her ninth studio album, in March, her first since her 2018 critically acclaimed 2018 album Honey.
Robyn has already released three dance-pop singles from the album, but the title track is the one that has everyone talking.
Sexistential is both the name of Robyn’s upcoming album and the album’s seventh track. But our big question is, what does Sexistential mean?
What does Sexistential mean?
Sexistential is Robyn’s playful take on exploring her sexuality and the sensual side of her life.
Sexistential, a mash-up of the words sex and existential, sets the scene for her new album. The idea of one’s existence being tied to sensuality appears to be a theme Robyn explores in her new music.
Speaking about the album’s title, the artist explained it came from a sexual realisation. “I feel like the purpose of my life is to stay horny,” states Robyn in the album press release.
“Exploring my sensual life is the same feeling as when I make a good song.
“It’s such a beautiful kind of sensitive vibration that takes so much work to keep afloat…. it doesn’t even have to be about sex, but it’s feeling sensual and attracted to things that I enjoy, and not letting anything take over that.”
She has labelled the track “Sexistential” as “possibly the world’s first rap about having one-night stands while 10 weeks pregnant after IVF.”
In the track, Robyn writes and sings about sex and desire with self-assured confidence.
“F**k a Plan B, baby, it’s no big deal / I’m already ten weeks in maternity / F**k a single mom, I’m not judgmental,” she raps in the first verse.
Robyn performed the track on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. She was solo on stage, lyrics on the screen behind her as she performed with unabashed physically.
Thrusting, grating and twisting herself like a pretzel on the stage, Robyn is back!
When is Robyn’s Sexistential being released?
There are only a few weeks before Sexistential drops, but you can listen to three tracks now: “Dopamine”, “Talk To Me” and “Sexistential”.
The upcoming album has nine tracks. Alongside the already mentioned trio, there is “Really Real”, “Blow My Mind”, “Sucker For Love”, “It Don’t Mean A Thing”, “Light Up” and, finally, “Into The Sun”.
Robyn’s Honey is set to drop on March 27.
