Can Robyn Be the Next Lady Gaga — Or at Least Bigger Than Ke$ha?

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I’ve been in Robyn’s corner from hit one.

Flashback to 1997: She had me at “Do You Know (What It Takes),” her debut U.S. single. While everyone else was all over her teen contemporaries — Brandy, Monica, Aaliyah, LeAnn Rimes — I was firmly on Team Robyn, and not just because the Swede had as much soul as the R&B-pop competition, if not quite as much vocal power as Rimes. Her songs were sturdy and catchy, and when I met her in person at a party to celebrate the platinum certification of her debut album, Robyn Is Here, she impressed me with her flawless English and the fact that she was 17 going on 30.

But her record label, RCA Records, lost faith in her because she didn’t fit the cookie cutter mould that they had made for her and would later unsuccessfully try to cram Christina Aguilera into. Her next two albums, 1999’s My Truth and 2002’s Don’t Stop the Music, weren’t even released in the United States, as they were deemed uncommercial. I had to travel all the way to Sao Paulo, Brazil, to find the former, and I ordered the latter off of some shady Scandinavian website (price tag: $36 or thereabouts) that surprisingly, and thankfully, didn’t rip me off.

It wasn’t until her fourth album, 2005’s Robyn, was repackaged and rereleased several times (once with an audacious pumping-piano-driven cover of Prince’s “Jack U Off”) and spawned the No. 1 UK single “With Every Heartbeat,” a collaboration with dance music producer Kleerup, that Robyn became hot again. Everywhere but in the U.S., where Robyn (version 3.0) was released in 2008 by Interscope Records, and where people so often don’t know a good thing when they hear it.

Undaunted by her lack of U.S. success, Robyn has soldiered on, releasing deservedly acclaimed collaborations with Basement Jaxx, Christian Falk, Snoop Dogg and Röyksopp, with whom she recorded “The Girl and the Robot,” which for my money was the best single of 2009. It made me want to dance and cry at the same time, and I probably did once or twice while listening to it.

She continues the future-shock theme with “Fembot,” the first single from her fifth album, due in June. (Wikipedia calls it Body Talk, though Robyn says the album is still untitled.) “Fembot” may be no “Robot” (and really, what is?), but it’s everything a great Robyn track should be: daring, melodic and sexy, with a propulsive techno beat that reminds me of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’s “Scorpio” or Midnight Star’s “Freak-a-Zoid.” If you’re going to go all retro-’80s, you might as well skip the obvious references and do it right.

Gaga, Ke$ha, watch your backs. Robyn is here (again!), and she’s going after your fan base.