The song was part of the artist’s Spotify-sponsored set at Los Angeles’ Fonda Theatre, billed “An Evening With Robyn”
Robyn‘s new single “Dopamine” is all about questioning the cause of your happiness, the biological impulse of joy set to an upbeat melody, and that’s kind of a buzzkill. Luckily, when you hear Robyn perform the song live, which she did for the first time on Wednesday, you can stop thinking so deeply about everything and actually enjoy the artist’s first new solo track in close to a decade.
The song was part of the artist’s Spotify-sponsored set at Los Angeles’ Fonda Theatre, billed “An Evening With Robyn.” Fan-shot video shows her singing the words, gesturing a little with her arms as red and orange lights dart around her in the smoke machine haze. Luckily, her own dopamine sets in about 90 seconds in, and she starts dancing. By the time the beat gets heavy toward the end, she’s dancing with the microphone stand amid even thicker smoke, and it all seems to dance back with her.
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When Robyn released the song last week, she digressed on the implications of experiencing biochemical joy in a world of shit. No, seriously: “Everyone has a phone where they see their heart rate, and we’re learning how to decode our emotions through the hormones and chemical substances in our bodies. It’s almost like we don’t even accept that we’re human anymore, like we’re trying to shoot ourselves out of it and explain every single thing — which I think is great, but that’s also why the world is shit, this idea that you can figure out and win life or something.”
She went on to elucidate the processes of feeling an emotion and reconciling the fact that everybody feels this because it’s human nature, and you gotta just go with it. Hey, at least it’s got a catchy hook.
