CLAIRY Browne wants to be a pop star. The Australian singer, songwriter and taboo slayer wants to be up there with those mononym megastars, Beyonce, Rihanna, Sia, Kylie.

So she went to America. The tough truth is Australia rarely makes pop star dreams come true for our female artists, particularly those who know what they want and aren’t afraid to claim it.

“Yeah, I am down for the whole kit and kabboodle, the pop star dream. One of the things about Australian culture is artists don’t say what they really want because they feel they don’t deserve it. They keep themselves quiet and their dreams in their head,” Browne says.

“But that’s what I want, to sit at that table with all those best bitches and take my rightful place.

“We’ll see how people react but I have worked super hard for this because although we love pop music in Australia, it is a harder thing to break through here.”

Browne has been making a big noise on the Australian musical landscape for the past seven years, first with her sassy soul outfit Clairy Browne and the Bangin’ Rackettes and then as part of Paul Kelly’s all-star ensemble of voices on the Merri Soul Sessions collaboration alongside Vika and Linda Bull, Kira Puru and Dan Sultan. She stole the show every time she stood at centre stage.

She is bold and brassy, a woman who is overtly and proudly sexy — she calls it “sexy positive” — and her debut solo album Pool is the polar opposite of the bluesy soul which made her name thus far.

It’s smouldering R&B, infectious and edgy pop and exactly the sound of now you have come to expect from Beyonce, Rihanna and Sia.

Pool was introduced last year by the bootylicious video for the single Vanity Fair, a song which put a tongue firmly between the cheeks as it targeted the narcissistic epidemic of selfies and overblown self-enhancement. Let’s just say Nicki Minaj would applaud while Kim Kardashian probably wouldn’t get the joke.

Browne knew exactly what she was doing with the video. She is sexy and she knows it. What she didn’t want — and got, like the majority of her female pop peers — was the offensive misogynistic trolling by impotent keyboard cowards.

Her female and male peers valiantly called them out and rallied to support her on social media after a Periscope interview with website themusic.com.au was hijacked by a deluge of comments about her body and sexual propositions. It was revolting stuff even in an era when you think social media bullying couldn’t shock you any more.

Browne hit back with a post calling out the catcallers and the sexism inherent in music culture.

“Ironically — there are songs on my record that talk about this f---ked up culture of misogyny that MANY people choose to downplay or dismiss. It’s alive and well in 2016. We need to stand up to this because it’s poison,” she wrote.

A few weeks later, Browne is still fighting the good fight against the body shamers, slut shamers and garden variety sexists.

“I think I am a fairly courageous person by nature. It’s not like this happened and I felt so bad inside,” she says.

“The infuriating thing is I am sick of teaching (them) what feminism is — pick up a book. The problem is ignorance and misinformation for a lot of dudes out there.

“They should stop taking any comment on misogyny as a personal attack because that shows me you are fundamentally misogynist. If they could stop and listen, they might fix it.

“The great thing is I have a strong army of female friends and people around me who experience it and have this understanding and can talk about what’s going on. The more voices, the better.”

Her voice is ringing clear on Pool. After finishing a tour of America in 2014, Browne was introduced to singer, songwriter and producer Amanda “MNDR” Warner in Los Angeles and the pair unlocked her inner pop princess, the teenager who had loved TLC and Salt N Pepa even as she sang along to her father’s Beach Boys records.

MNDR was the co-writer and voice behind the Mark Ronson hit Bang Bang Bang and has credits on tracks by Kylie, Rita Ora, Santigold, MS M and Charli XCX.

The pair clicked immediately in the studio and MNDR also opened up her “little black book of writers” which included Jesse Shatkin, Sia’s collaborator on Chandelier.

“I love pop and R&B from way back and she got what I wanted to do,’’ Browne says.

“This was a chance to really show my voice. It’s not that I couldn’t have done the album in Australia but I didn’t want to be on autopilot, doing what I had already done and pop is a stronger beast in America.”

Pool is an often carnal expression of sexiness alongside the falling in and out of love songs you associate with pop.

The kiss off of F.U.B. (an acronym for F--- You Boy) is preceded by Love Song To The World. Browne laughs when asked if any exes may recognise themselves in her lyrics.

“That’s something you have to expect when you sign up,” she says. “I don’t need to warn them.”

And she agrees, that like many of her songwriter soulmates, an unconscious propensity to sabotage relationships will always lead to a song.

“Oh I definitely self sabotage, I can identify with that,” she says.

“Being alive in the midst of drama is not such a positive thing but it’s great for writing and living as a creative being. Just not that good spiritually.”

As Browne releases Pool in Australia on April 15, America is also calling. Her music has already pricked ears courtesy of Love Letter, a single with the Bangin’ Rackettes airing on a JC Penney ad during the Oscars telecast in February. And US drag superstar Ru Paul dropped their collaboration Born Naked last month, nicely setting up the release of Pool in the US later this month.

The pop dream is on the verge of realisation, even if Australia doesn’t get it, and she crosses everything we will.

“Everyone out there who is a superfan of my old music could be in for a little shock but that’s what artists do, they evolve and get to show the different parts of themselves, ”she says.

“Pop is such an exciting thing to do and I would really love people here to embrace it.”

Pool is out on April 15.