Swedish pop star Robyn gets her groove back

By Mitchell Peters

LOS ANGELES (Billboard) - Some could label her a rebel, but Robyn might best be described as a teen pop survivor of the music industry.

In the years after her U.S. breakthrough in the late 1990s, the Swedish singer had nearly abandoned hopes of maintaining a successful career. But more than a decade later, Robyn will return to the American music scene with a self-titled album that's hits shelves April 29 via Konichiwa/Cherrytree/Interscope.

"It is definitely like getting a second chance," Robyn says. "I had scrapped all my ideas of being an international artist again, because I was scared of the music industry."

The 29-year-old singer's 1997 U.S. debut, "Robyn Is Here" (RCA) produced such hits as "Show Me Love" and "Do You Know (What It Takes)." But when it came time to release a follow-up studio album in the States, to the dismay of record labels, Robyn insisted on moving away from her pop-focused sound. In turn, the labels declined to release her new material.

During the next several years, while signed to BMG in Sweden, Robyn was able to live comfortably by releasing a handful of overseas-only albums. But something was missing in the music. "I was always forced to conform to the structure of the major industry," she says. "I just wanted to detach myself. I wanted to start over."

Second chances are rare for most artists, but not impossible, as Robyn has set out to prove. More than a decade has passed since the U.S. release of "Robyn Is Here," which has sold 922,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Even so, her American fan base is as vibrant as ever. Interest was reignited after the 2007 U.K. release of Robyn's electro-heavy self-titled album, which first came out in Sweden in 2005 via the artist's Konichiwa Records.

"All of these international blogs and music sites quickly started to pick up on the music," Robyn says. "It really gave me the courage to believe there was an audience out there for me."

The new set finds Robyn collaborating with members of fellow Swede acts the Knife and Teddybears, among others. After shopping the self-titled disc to U.K. labels and then being rejected, Robyn decided to release the album through Konichiwa, which she founded in 2004. After the love-addled single "With Every Heartbeat" went to No. 1 on the Official U.K. Singles chart, "all of the labels that said 'no' in the beginning came back," says Robyn, who eventually signed a joint venture with Island in the United Kingdom.

Robyn recently contributed vocals to a track by rapper Snoop Dogg, singing the chorus on the remix of his single "Sexual Eruption."

A three-week U.S. theater tour is scheduled to begin April 26 in Miami and wrap May 17 at the Wiltern in Los Angeles.