Robyn is a Swedish singer and songwriter. Her first album came out in 1995, when she was 16 years old. It went platinum in the US, double-platinum in Sweden. Since then, she’s been nominated for five Grammys and started her own record label. But there was an eight-year gap between Robyn’s album Body Talk, which came out in 2010, and her most recent album, Honey, which came out last October. Time, Rolling Stone, and Pitchfork all named it one of the best albums of the year.

For Song Exploder, Robyn breaks down the song “Honey,” the title track from that album. The first time the public heard the song was in a 2017 episode of the HBO show Girls, but that’s not the final version that was released on the album. In this episode, Robyn traces the long history of how she made “Honey,” a song that The New York Times called “her masterpiece.”

You can buy or stream “Honey” here.

For a transcript of this episode, click here.

Illustration by Carlos Lerma.

footnotes
Collaborators on “Honey” –
Markus Jägerstedt
Klas Åhlund
Joseph Mount of Metronomy
Phillipe Zdar of Cassius

Justin Vernon founded the band Bon Iver in 2006. Bon Iver’s released four albums and won two Grammys, including Best New Artist.

The most recent album i,i came out in August 2019, and in this episode, Justin breaks down a song from it called “Holyfields,.” He’s joined by producers Chris Messina and Brad Cook. We spoke to him in July, from his studio in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, where the song started. They finished it at Sonic Ranch studio in Tornillo, Texas, on the border between the US and Mexico.

You can buy or stream “Holyfields,” here.

For a transcript of this episode, click here.

Illustration by Carlos Lerma.

footnotes
EML Electrocomp 101
Yamaha Reface CS
The Messina
Rob Moose – Strings

 

Sleater-Kinney was formed in 1994 by Corin Tucker and Carrie Brownstein. Drummer Janet Weiss was a member of the band from 1997 until 2019. In 2001, author and critic Greil Marcus named Sleater-Kinney “America’s Best Band” in Time Magazine. Over the years, they’ve made nine albums, including this year’s The Center Won’t Hold which was produced by Annie Clark of St. Vincent. In this episode, Corin Tucker and Carrie Brownstein break down how the song “The Future Is Here” was made.

You can buy or stream “The Future is Here” right here.

For a transcript of this episode, click here.

Illustration by Carlos Lerma.

footnotes
Joseph Keckler
Weirdo Night at Zebulon
St Vincent episode of Song Exploder