Call your girlfriend...and tell her to listen to Honey.

October 31, 2018 11:45 AM

Her first in 8 long years, Robyn is back with a much awaited new album.

And it's good. We'd expect nothing less from one of the great pop icons in recent history.

Stream the whole album.

posted by Lutoslawski (12 comments total)

It's pretty great. "Honey" is currently in heavy rotation over here.
posted by naju at 11:58 AM on October 31, 2018 [1 favorite]

Ugh, loving this album this week. "Honey" and "Missing U" are great dance tracks.

Jia Tolentino nailed it when she said that she "always understood the music of the thirty-nine-year-old Swedish pop star to be something like a club drug: a substance that drastically increases your likelihood of dancing and crying simultaneously."
posted by hepta at 2:23 PM on October 31, 2018 [1 favorite]

I am a hair metal-, classic rock-, and punk-leaning 51-year-old male, and I have loved every piece of music I've heard from Robyn since watching her belt out "Show Me Love" in some live TV performance some 20(?) years ago.

"Missing U" made me cry today.
posted by hanov3r at 3:19 PM on October 31, 2018 [1 favorite]

This album has been certified as both “slapping” and being “filled with bops” by a random sampling of people with good taste.
posted by supercrayon at 5:42 PM on October 31, 2018

Good lord, that was utterly bland and dull. I do not understand the glowing reviews.
posted by corvikate at 6:18 AM on November 1, 2018

Good lord, that was utterly bland and dull. I do not understand the glowing reviews.

I don't think it's that bad but I do think that it is just competent to pretty good. I was surprised at the glowing reviews myself. I'm glad people enjoy it and I guess there is just something I'm missing with this release.
posted by josher71 at 8:41 AM on November 1, 2018 [1 favorite]

I've been waiting for this to drop and my initial reaction is "Fuck me that's gorgeous." "Honey," in particular has that sort of late night, half-stoned deep house vibe that I live for. And I think I could become obsessed with "Send To Robin Immediately."

Pitchfork has an interview with Robyn re: Honey which, despite being defiantly Pitchfork-y at moments—"[she] positioned herself differently from the late 2000s array of irreverent “bad girls” like Britney Spears, Lily Allen, and Amy Winehouse"—really, guys?—is still worth reading.
posted by octobersurprise at 8:50 AM on November 1, 2018

I don't think it's that bad but I do think that it is just competent to pretty good. I was surprised at the glowing reviews myself. I'm glad people enjoy it and I guess there is just something I'm missing with this release.

Hard dame. I found this very "fine." Better than meh but none off the singles distinguished themselves in my ear. I haven't been this confused by an avalanche of rave reviews since Carly Rae Jepsen's E-mo-tion.
posted by CatastropheWaitress at 9:26 AM on November 1, 2018

Robyn's fine. Guardian crit is kinda going overboard with the hype.
posted by ovvl at 10:24 AM on November 1, 2018

It’s a great album though it’s a grower rather than a shower, I agree. It’s no Bodytalk.

But some of the lyrics tho... “I turned all my sorrow into glass. It don’t leave no shadow... “

She’s the kind of artist that just “gets” into the cathartic power of good pop music.
posted by Middlemarch at 3:24 PM on November 1, 2018 [1 favorite]

I've never heard of Robyn before but I was recommended to listen to this song by a friend a few weeks ago.

Is the rest of her music as synth-pop inspired? Or, hopefully, moreso?
posted by rebent at 4:44 PM on November 1, 2018

Is the rest of her music as synth-pop inspired? Or, hopefully, moreso?

It sure is.
posted by josher71 at 9:14 AM on November 5, 2018