Robyn

Sweden's pop dignitary, Robyn – usurping the crown from ABBA – is an exemplary talent. She's equal parts brutally honest, gut-wrenchingly agonising, jaw-pain hilarious and boogie-bait. There's nary a popstar around with more party-galvanising choons that the Scandinavian star. Utilising her native region's famous knack for incisive Top 40 infernos and striking synth-based salvoes, Robin Carlsson (alter-ego of Robyn) oozes brilliance from nigh every pore. Tracks like “With Every Heartbeat”, “Call Your Girlfriend”, “Hang With Me”, “Dancing On My Own”, “Dancehall Queen”, “Cobrastyle” and “Criminal Intent” are blinding examples of her igniting, invigorating pop grandeur – almost every track on the Body Talks trilogy is a genuine hit – but with the addition of her new material, collaborations with Röyksopp, any performance will be encrusted with singalong rampages.
With palpable emotions, reworkings of album paeans (into cranked-up megaliths), technicolour garments, pitch-perfect delivery, neon belligerence and swaggerlicious movements, expect AV perfection from Robyn.

There’s certain bands from the Madchester scene who never quite burnt out in the way that some of the more prominent acts did; Happy Mondays, of course, collapsed in comical fashion under the weight of eye-watering levels of drug use and, if you’re to believe the historically-dubious Tony Wilson biopic 24 Hour Party People, threats to the Factory boss at gunpoint, whilst the wheels also came off in pretty spectacular fashion for The Stone Roses in the mid-nineties after the half-baked Second Coming flopped. 808 State, though, always had enough cult appeal to remain a going concern; they were formed out of the dance-oriented Manchester record store Eastern Bloc (which still exists today, albeit on different premises) and soon set about bringing house and electro sounds to the clubbers of Manchester, particularly at the Hacienda. They’ve had an impressive legacy in the years since, too, with Aphex Twin just one of a host of contemporary acts to credit 808 State with having influenced their career. They haven’t released an album since Outpost Transmission in 2003 - which featured Guy Garvey of Elbow - but still play live sets across the country to crowds made up partly of nostalgists and partly of house and dance aficionados, confirming their place in British dance music history.