This is The Guardian.

My name is Laura Snopes. I am the Guardian's

Deputy Music Editor and the author of How Robin Transformed Pop.

I was inspired to write this article because I've been a long time fan of Robin.

She is actually the first pop star I ever remember seeing on TV back when she was a teen star

in the 90s. Although at the time I mostly remember being annoyed that Rugrats wasn't on yet.

Over the years she left behind that kind of teen pop stardom. She gained independence over her career

and she started making some of the most influential electronic pop music of the 2000s and 2010s.

The way she took control over her career was really evident in a cohort of young pop stars who came up after her,

who were using pop music as a form of artistic expression. After it had spent probably the last decade

and a lot of the previous decade relegated in a lot of people's minds as this sort of commercial pap.

And that was really exciting. I wanted to have a look at how As Robin was returning with an

album called Honey that was very very long in the making, seven or eight years in the making,

how her influence had trickled down through subsequent generations of pop stars and also what she

was going to do with this influence now that she was returning. Though I think one of the most

surprising things about spending time with Robin to write this article was how low key she is.

It's not that I thought that she was a big personality because she'd never been a sort of Katy Perry

Taylor Swift style pop star even if she had comparable bangers. But she had spent a lot of time

in psychoanalysis which fed into the writing of this record. And she seemed like somebody who had a

really deeply considered almost somber perspective on life. And she was a really wonderful person

spend time with. She was very calming and very thoughtful. Three years on from writing this piece,

I don't know how commercially successful Honey was but artists like Robin don't really do that

...