Album Review: Robyn, Honey

Robyn is definitely your favourite popstar’s favourite popstar. She’s done it all: had the Max Martin hits; conquered America; and taken full control of her work by leaving Britney label Jive Records and going her own way with Konichiwa.

It’s easy to be confident when you’ve hits like ‘Dancing on My Own’ up your sleeve – a tune made monumental not by its chart performance but by its influence. Many have aped it, but none can touch its status as the pinnacle of that oxymoronic class of songs: the sad banger.

It’s why Robyn can afford to go eight years without an album and also why her fans are so thrilled with this release. Honey is a wonderfully spare 40-minute record – there is not a pick of fat on these songs. There’s more than a hint of Giorgio Moroder and Donna Summer on opener ‘Missing You’. Lyrically it’s a heavy song, with lines like “There’s an empty space you left behind / When you’re not here for me” written after the death of longtime collaborator Christian Falk, but kept hopeful by a wonderfully playful synth arpeggio.

‘Beach2k20’ is a relaxed, post-disco deconstruction of what makes a hit, as if Robyn wanted to write her Four Tet remix before Four Tet did – staying ahead of the game as always. Closer ‘Ever Again’ is a funky bass-led earworm that wouldn’t sound out of place on Discovery. Here Robyn addresses her position as the queen of dancefloor tearjerkers “Never gonna be brokenhearted / Ever again / Only gonna sing about love/ Ever again”.

Honey may not dominate the charts this year, or next. But just as ‘Dancing On My Own’ inspired records like Carly Rae Jepsen’s Emotion, it’s not fanciful to think that what we hear here could dominate in 2022.

Out now.

9/10