Robyn performs on the main stage of the O2 Wireless Festival in Hyde Park, London.(Photo: LEON NEAL, AFP / Getty Images)

With regard to the pop music stories we will remember in 2018, the most sustainable will probably be a fictional narrative: "A star is born", the Oscar pioneer who, despite all his charms, has a pretty dark opinion of pop. Stop me if you've ever heard this one before, it seems in the movie, with its supposedly familiar story of Ally, of Lady Gaga, a young artist who leaves behind her writing and sincere work from his beginnings to costumes, dance routines and soulless hits. It's supposed to be the story we're supposed to know is true about pop music, how it's the genre that makes you famous, but maybe not the same kind.

And then, there's Robyn's "Honey", the best pop album of 2018, which proves that there are so many wonders of the genre that the movie does not care to say. Pop is supposed to be a genre that belongs to the brightest young people. Robyn is 39 and has been in the game for decades. She is first known in her country, Sweden, and then crossed the pond to become a beloved critic favorite in the United States. And she is now one of the best music of her career.

The stars of pop music should work in a machine to produce new success; Robyn took eight years to produce "Honey", following her beloved album "Body Talk" of 2010, moving away from music for nearly 10 years. Far from the soulless pop musician, some of the Swedish singer's most enduring hits – especially her hit "Dancing On My Own" – are bizarre dancefloor anthems. Her female dance sequence in the video "Call Your Girlfriend" is the perfect antidote to the kind of oversized and overly repeated routines that Lady Gaga's character tries to do in the film.

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And beyond that, "Honey" does not look like the album of a pop star interested in stuffing their output of the maximum of hits. "Honey" is the slowest album of Robyn's career. His nine laser-centric pieces inspire club music rather than pop radio. They are characterized by stripped grooves that unfold over the songs, sometimes creating an evocative atmosphere. culmination, sometimes leaving the listener waiting for a great moment that Robyn chooses never to materialize.

"Honey" is perhaps a dancing album, but her strongest emotion is anguish, from the glittering sadness of her single "Missing U" to the chorus of "Because it's in the music" that sums up the mission of the album, "Because it's in the music / Yes, we were dancing on / I'm back at that time / And it makes me want to cry. "And seeing how" Honey "is lean, no production flourishes in its place, its frantic moments are all the more impactful, as when its brilliant final title" Ever Again "explodes into one. euphoria of synths in the last moments of the album.

That's also why some listeners, who may be expecting the honey list to be as rich in earworms as some of his previous albums, may be disappointed by the quieter pace and less populous hooks. But, when you remember that Robyn – as our protagonist of "Star is Born", Ally – began his career as a young pop-star very well made, it is clear that "Honey" is the kind of album with which she has been striving for all her life. able to liberate, an honest manifestation of his art that is uniquely and purely to her.

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