NPR

Robyn Is The 21st Century's Pop Oracle

An artist in control of her work, Robyn serves us a dreamy possibility beyond the rigid binaries and adapts pop's dance floor language into something that serves her own dreams.
Robyn performs at Radio City Music Hall in 2011.

It's not enough to make list after list. The Turning the Tables project seeks to suggest alternatives to the traditional popular music canon, and to do more than that, too: to stimulate conversation about how hierarchies emerge and endure. This year, Turning the Tables considers how women and non-binary artists are shaping music in our moment, from the pop mainstream to the sinecures of jazz and contemporary classical music. Our list of the 200 Greatest Songs By Women+ offers a soundtrack to a new century. This series of essays takes on another task.

The 25 arguments writers make in these pieces challenge the usual definitions of influence.

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