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.
Reuters/Billboard
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