Glad to see the resurrection of DM'99.

I was tasked with reviewing The Weakerthans "Left and Leaving" vs Robyn "Body Talk".  These were both completely new albums to me which is the fun of DM. 

First listen was The Weakerthans.  The 40-second instrumental beginning to the first song is simple and pretty.  The rest of the album is worse.  The lead singer's voice (and there are no other voices) is not attractive.  That said, some singers with poor voices distinguish themselves by their distinctiveness.  Not so here.  Songs vary widely from hectic to slow from driving rhythm to singer-songwriter ballad.  I had hoped the album would pull together in some sort of direction as indicated by the title "Left and Leaving", but I couldn't find where they were going to.

Robyn's "Body Talk" is pop.  It's not trying to be smart pop, hip-hop, pop-rock.  It's just pure pop.  That's a synthesizer you're listening to.  It's not Madonna or MJ at their respective peaks, but good enough that I had it on during appetizers when dinner guests were over later in the day.  If I were a dancer I would be dancing right now.  Alas.  Simple melodies, and in fact, musically very sparce.  Most of what you hear is Robyn.  Not horribly offensive or offensively dumb lyrics. (Recently at a Triathlon, I was accosted by some pop song on the PA system, and eventually realized that it was all about some girl being late for her period as some future baby daddy had gotten one past the goalie (her words).  Great.)
I am happy to have Robyn in my rotation. 

Body Talk advances.