She's as feisty as Pink, as beat-savvy as M.I.A., does Eurodisco better than Gaga. But can this mercurial diva, a star in her native Sweden, crack the Billboard Top 40?  The second EP in Robyn's Body Talk trilogy (PT 1 was in June) offers up another batch of great, club-ready songs that are a touch too weird for American hit radio. Robyn sings and raps about standard diva themes (dance-floor ecstasy, self-reliance), but the music is deliciously wacked-out. In "U Should Know Better," she boasts alongside Snoop Dogg as a churchy choir swells over fuzzy effects. "We Dance to the Beat" is a thumper that slides from Eighties electro into squiggly abstraction. As far as the radio goes, Robyn has other priorities. "We dance to the beat," she croons, "of silent mutation."

“Time to Pretend”

Listening to MGMT’s breakthrough song, one might interpret it as being about the excesses of rock stardom, but it’s actually about the duo’s pet praying mantis. Ben Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden told Rolling Stone they got the idea from the insect's jerky movements. The mantis died, but the two bandmates kept the egg sack and allowed the hundreds of eggs to hatch. “We tried to name them all, but they died after a day,” said Goldwasser, with VanWyngarden chiming in, “But the praying mantis dance inspired us.”