Those expecting to see Swedish popstar Robyn belting out some of her Max Martin-penned teen-pop anthems at the Paradise on Tuesday night may have left a bit shaken.
Supported by two drummers and a DJ, the peroxide pixie took to the stage for the first show of her U.S. tour in support of her new self-titled album.
Although the album was released in her homeland in 2005, it wasn’t until the 2007 European release of the Kleerup collaboration, “With Every Heartbeat,” that people once again started to show interest in the Swedish songstress.
To the delight of the half-hipster, half-gay audience — although the difference was sometimes hard to tell — Robyn breezed through nearly all of her latest album (disc highlight “Should Have Known” was unfortunately skipped).
Robyn opened the set with her frantic cover of the Teddybears’ “Cobrastyle.” The disco-lite “Crash and Burn Girl” and Snoop Dogg remix “Sexual Eruption” (sans the Doggfather) turned the Paradise into a full-on dance floor, and Robyn showed off her emotional side with the airy ballad “Anytime You Like.”
“With Every Heartbeat” prompted the second-biggest sing-along of the night, playing second crowd-pleaser to a shortened, downtempo remix of “Show Me Love.”
Her teenybopper past was not completely abandoned either; she threw in “Keep This Fire Burning” for the diehards, a song from 2002’s Swedish-only release Don’t Stop The Music.
“This is amazing,” Robyn said with a smile to the euphoric crowd before closing with her ode to charity hand-jobs, “Jack U Off.” And please us she did, with the pizzazz and power-pop that only the Swedes know how to pull off.