Get the latest gossip
‘It burrows into your bones’: how Dancing on My Own became pop’s ultimate sad banger
Since its 2010 release, Robyn’s downbeat hit has influenced Charli xcx and Taylor Swift, soundtracked films and TV shows, and been yelled in unison at club nights. What’s the secret of its longevity?
In the years directly after its release, Dancing on My Own was featured on major TV shows such as Lena Dunham’s Girls, and grew in popularity thanks to Calum Scott’s stripped back, Love Island-worthy cover, which peaked at No 2 in the UK charts. Photograph: Peacock/Todd Owyoung/Getty ImagesFrom Lorde’s Melodrama to Taylor Swift’s Reputation via xx member Romy’s melancholy brand of four-on-the-floor, Charli xcx’s direct lyricism, and even Miley Cyrus and Katy Perry lopping their locks into pixie cuts, the charts have seemed impregnated with Robyn’s DNA ever since. It’s really subtle, but I think where people get that, we saw it and felt it.”There’s also something in the idea of delayed adolescence playing out on a dancefloor; the American academic Jack Halberstam writes that “queer time is the dark nightclub, the perverse turn away from the narrative coherence of adolescence-early-adulthood-marriage-reproduction-death”.
Or read this on The Guardian