…if you call in the next ten minutes and order now!
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Alfred Soto: What’s this — a “Silk” Hurley track with Robyn shedding any trace of melancholy? More, please!
[7]
Micha Cavaseno: Fantastic Terry-style rough-edged house banger, featuring over and underrated feminine pressures giving the tempo slices of extra tectonic fractural force.
[8]
Thomas Inskeep: A pencil sketch of a NYC house track, with way too many farty noises and sampled lyrical chunks, and precious little song structure. Robyn continues to be the most inexplicably vaunted hipster musical icon.
[2]
Katherine St Asaph: I kind of love that Robyn’s career trajectory has gone from “Show Me Love” to “Show Me Love.” Critics’ wishes aside, the sassy alt-pop star career never seemed to be one Robyn particularly wanted, nor the best version of her, which is probably why she’s pursued everything but. My favorite Body Talk song is “Don’t Fucking Tell Me What to Do,” not just for the implied “Robyn Stress Index” but for its brutal dance minimalism. “Love is Free” has more frippery and more credits, but also more fun and imagination — certainly more than a lot of revival house.
[7]
Scott Mildenhall: Robyn is not one to be pigeonholed. This is the clammiest thing she’s yet come up with, taking no pause for breath, and mostly because there’s no room for it. Everything is so tight and pressing, with sounds thrusting and rattling freely from all directions. It might really be only a not-hugely-imaginative rework of an obscure 80s track, but it intensifies what that source has. Rarely are there stronger expressions of what “banger” can signify.
[7]
Juana Giaimo: With Robyn having released some of the best pop music of the last couple of years, this is disappointing. “Love is Free” is tiring and trapped in a boring pattern that doesn’t offer a good rhythm to dance to or a good vocal melody to remember.
[4]
Brad Shoup: Robyn gets her LL Cool J on when she’s not settling comfortably into the track. This is a mid-evening club tune; I imagine it’d sound as good on the floor as on the balcony before heading back in.
[7]
Ramzi Awn: Love isn’t only free, it’s motherfucking fun too. Robyn’s party-ready vocal is disarmingly sweet to boot, and the To Wong Foo infused collabo puts a fine point on the fact that the self-proclaimed dancehall queen knows how to make smart decisions, and sell them. No doubt — I’ll let you give it to me, baby.
[9]
Will Adams: Robyn’s previous attempts at minimalist house fell really flat; “We Dance to the Beat” and “Don’t Fucking Tell Me What to Do” not only stood at odds with the tight pop confections of the Body Talk series, but they just weren’t that interesting to begin with, too caught up in their sloganeering to be effective. But “Love is Free” surpasses both by avoiding the conceptual. The repeated verses, two-note bassline, and insistent piano chords are really all you need (Robyn’s and Maluca’s bracing deliveries are an added bonus). No need to think about the message here — we dance to the beat of what? What is, deep down, killing you the most? — because it’s so simple and present. Simplified, perhaps, but in the wake of recent events, “love is free” is a statement that rings powerful and true. And even if it isn’t in practice, it sure as hell feels that way during the song’s five minutes.
[8]