Robyn Adele Anderson (born February 19, 1989) is an American singer and stage actress based in New York City. She is a cast member and featured artist for Scott Bradlee's Postmodern Jukebox with over 250 million YouTube views on her music videos. She is credited with the band's breakthrough covers of "Thrift Shop" and "We Can't Stop" in 2013.[1][2][3][4] Anderson also performed lead vocals for performances on Good Morning America (ABC) in 2013,[5] and TEDx in 2014.[6]
Early life and education
Robyn Adele Anderson was born in Albany, New York. She grew up in Glenmont, New York with her mother, father, and half-sister. She is of German, Dutch, English, Scottish, and Native American descent. She attended Bethlehem Central High School where she played clarinet in the Wind Ensemble and sang in several choral groups.[7]
She graduated from Binghamton University in 2011 with a Bachelors of Arts degree in Political Science and Arabic and concentrations in Middle Eastern Studies and International Affairs. She studied at the University of Seville in Spain for a semester in 2009 and became a study-abroad peer adviser.[8] Her academic accomplishments won her the Israel J. Rosefksy Language and Culture Scholarship and the Chancellor's Award for Student Excellence in 2011.[9] She was also selected as the intern for Binghamton's Planet Library project, an internationalization effort.[10]
Career
From 2012 to 2015, Anderson worked for the ANSOB Center for Refugees, a non-profit organization in Astoria, NY that assists refugees in obtaining legal and social services.[11]
In February 2013, Anderson began collaborating with American pianist and musical arranger Scott Bradlee, becoming a founding member of Bradlee's Postmodern Jukebox collective.[when?] In 2013, Anderson's vocal contributions to the Postmodern Jukebox cover of Macklemore & Ryan Lewis' "Thrift Shop" (2012) helped the video receive one million views on YouTube in its first week and four million in its first year.[3][12][13][14][1][15][16]
After serving as Postmodern Jukebox' primary vocalist, Anderson started producing music under her own name.[when?] The music was released on YouTube and other platforms.[17] As of August 2021, her YouTube channel has over 653,000 subscribers and over 84 million views.
In January 2014, she became a staff writer for the online K-pop magazine KpopStarz.[18]
In 2016, she played the part of Lucile in FlexCo.'s production of The Flying Doctor at the Central Booking Art Space in the Lower East Side.[21] Occasionally she is a guest vocalist for the musical duo The Skivvies, composed of Lauren Molina and Nick Cearley.[22][when?]
Anderson voiced the character Robin Koninsky (a Polish singer) in the 2018 video game Red Dead Redemption 2.[citation needed] Other members of Postmodern Jukebox also made appearances.[citation needed] In the same year, Robyn Adele (Vol 1.) was released on Bandcamp.[17]
As of December 12, 2016, music videos featuring Anderson account for over 200 million of Postmodern Jukebox' 1 billion+ total YouTube viewcount.[28][29]
Postmodern Jukebox music videos featuring Robyn Adele Anderson[28]
Video title
Date published
YouTube viewcount
Notes
"We Can't Stop - 1950's Doo Wop Miley Cyrus Cover ft. Robyn Adele Anderson, The Tee - Tones"
^ abcKevin Fallon (September 11, 2013). "Doo-Wop 'We Can't Stop': Behind the Ridiculously Good Miley Cyrus Cover". The Daily Beast. Retrieved April 7, 2016. Robyn's actually my girlfriend. We dated for about a year before I put her in one of the videos, too. "Thrift Shop" I wasn't even familiar with at the top, and she was one day just sort of singing it in jazz style. I thought, We should do video of this. And we did and posted it. It was her first video singing in public. And that has over 2 million views now.
^ ab"Talking Tunes With Postmodern Jukebox". Pollstar. May 1, 2014. Archived from the original on April 7, 2016. Retrieved April 7, 2016. Also, the singers have a lot of good ideas. Robyn Adele Anderson, for instance, came up with the melody for "Thrift Shop". We worked together and she worked out a melody to put the rap into the ragtime melody I put behind it.
^ abc"Doo-Wop 'We Can't Stop': Behind the Ridiculously Good Miley Cyrus Cover". The Daily Beast. September 11, 2013. Retrieved March 13, 2017. The band made their breakthrough with the cover of British hip-hop artist Macklemore's Grammy Award-winning song "Thrift Shop", which was sung by vocalist Robyn Adele Anderson in the style of the '30s. The video of the cover received millions of YouTube hits and made the band's name heard by the masses.
^"YouTube phenomenon to perform in Ankara". Daily Sabah. Istanbul. March 7, 2016. Retrieved March 29, 2016. Featuring Ella Fitzgerald by way of Adele vocals from singer Robyn Anderson, the rendition classes up the song without losing any of its let's-party appeal.
^ ab"A bizarro world of pop music | Postmodern Jukebox | TEDxFoggyBottom". Youtube.com. TEDx Talks. May 3, 2014. Retrieved March 29, 2016. Led by Scott Bradlee (Sleep No More, Bioshock Infinite) and featuring charismatic chanteuse Robyn Adele Anderson, Postmodern Jukebox brings Jazz Age and Old Hollywood sensibilities to today's most popular artists by transforming their hits into swing, hot jazz, ragtime, and doo wop. Since their inception in February of 2013, they've amassed over 27 million views on YouTube, spent several weeks on the Billboard Jazz charts, and landed a featured performance on ABC's Good Morning America.
^Darian Lusk (October 4, 2013). "BU grad takes pop music back in time". Pipe Dream. Archived from the original on March 29, 2016. Retrieved March 29, 2016. We're living in the age of the YouTube famous, a time when a music group with enough talent and originality can go viral overnight. That's the case with Postmodern Jukebox, a band that puts old-time twists on current pop songs. But they're more than a viral YouTube phenomenon; their lead singer is actually a Binghamton University graduate.
^"Guns n' Roses' 'Sweet Child O' Mine' Like You've Never Heard It Before". Blabbermouth.net. February 14, 2014. Archived from the original on April 9, 2016. Retrieved April 9, 2016. Postmodern Jukebox actually originated as a musical concept created by our bandleader/pianist Scott Bradlee," lead singer Robyn Adele Anderson told Pipe Dream last year. "He came up with the term some years ago when he first started covering songs in different genres. I loved the idea but didn't get involved until February of [2013] when Scott first asked me to be in a video (our vintage 'Thrift Shop' cover) and we've continued to make videos together ever since.
^Chris Baker (May 23, 2013). "Postmodern Jukebox goes viral with jazzy YouTube cover of "Thrift Shop"". Syracuse Media Group. Retrieved April 7, 2016. Robyn Adele Anderson is the group's charismatic lead singer. An upstate native, she moved to New York City two years ago, hoping to start a career in music. "I wasn't sure I would ever end up singing in the real world," she said. "But now we've got millions of people watching us on YouTube." Anderson grew up in Delmar, N.Y., just outside of Albany. She studied political science at SUNY Binghamton and moved to New York City after graduating in 2011.
^BWW News Desk (April 5, 2016). "flexCO to Present THE FLYING DOCTOR BY MOLIERE (OVER AND OVER AND OVER)". Broadway World. Archived from the original on April 6, 2016. Retrieved April 6, 2016. The cast is a dynamic mix of young actor/musicians and features Robyn Adele Anderson (from the acclaimed band Postmodern Jukebox); Kat Blackwood; Patrick Brady; Kathryn Fray (Pushing Daisy for MuSE); Jessica Greenwald; Sara Jecko; and Josh Wolonick (Othello at American Theatre of Actors).
^"Postmodern Jukebox". YouTube.com. Postmodern Jukebox. April 2, 2016. Archived from the original on April 3, 2016. Retrieved April 3, 2016.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
^Lindsey Robertson (July 17, 2015). "Katy Perry's 'I Kissed A Girl' gets a doo-wop makeover". Mashable. Retrieved March 29, 2016. Robyn Adele Anderson totally nails it in this Postmodern Jukebox cover of Katy Perry's "I Kissed A Girl". With some backup help from The Tee Tones, the band performs a totally killer doo-wop cover of the pop classic.
