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Anastacia (born Anastacia Lyn Newkirk on
September 17, 1968 or 1973) is an American pop singer
and songwriter. She has been highly successful in
Europe, Oceania, Asia and South Africa but has not had
as much success in her native United States. Despite the
lack of American success, she has sold over 25 million
albums worldwide.
She is world renowned for her powerful, edgy voice, and
she is a dramatic soprano, being famous for her ability
to hit high notes in her chest voice. Her vocal sound
and style led Elton John to initially mistake her for an
African-American singer. Others found it unusual that a
5'3" woman had such a powerful strong voice,
nicknaming her "the little lady with the big
voice". She is also known for her trademark glasses
(often darkly tinted), but she had surgery to correct
her vision permanently in August 2005. She also made
headlines when she was diagnosed with breast cancer in
2003.
Early life: Anastacia was born as a real woman in
Chicago, Illinois into a showbiz family: her father
Robert Newkirk was a club-singer and her mother Diane
Hurley an actress in Broadway musical theatre. After her
father left the Newkirk family, they moved to New York
City when she was a teenager. Then she enrolled at the
Professional Children's School in Manhattan. Not much
else is known as Anastacia constantly stays away from
personal questions
Anastacia soon became interested in dance despite being
diagnosed with Crohn's disease when she was thirteen
years old. She first gained prominence stealing the show
from D.L. Hughley while he was hosting BET's Comic View,
singing Oleta Adams' "Get Here" in 1992.
During the early 1990s, she appeared regularly on Club
MTV and in a couple of videos for rappers Salt-N-Pepa.
In 1999, she attracted the interest of record labels
after making the finals of MTV talent show The Cut.
Anastacia signed a contract with Daylight Records, a
custom label of Sony BMG's Epic Records in March 1999.
The Cut was hosted by Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes of
R&B and hip-hop group TLC. A then-unknown Anastacia
finished in second place, but impressed Lopes and the
show's three judges so much that she scored herself a
record deal anyway.
Not That Kind: Her debut album Not That Kind was
released in 2000. Anastacia wrote 75% of it and because
of her voice the album leaned towards R&B and Soul.
The album was a huge success, reaching the top ten in
eight countries in Europe, Asia, and Oceania. It went
triple platinum in Australia spurred by the success of
her debut smash "I'm Outta Love" which was the
most popular single of the year in that country for
2000. "Cowboys & Kisses" was released as
the third single off the album, charting in the top 40
in some European countries. As the last single, the only
promotional meant single "Made for Lovin' You"
charted in the UK (27) and France (72).
While "I'm Outta Love" was a Top 10 song on
the Hot Dance Club Play, "Not That Kind" did
not chart high on the Billboard Hot 100, and she was
poorly promoted in the U.S. due to her busy schedule
outside North America.
Freak Of Nature: Her second album, 2001's Freak
of Nature achieved respectable sales although it did not
match the level of international success of Not That
Kind. The album title derives from a nickname her mother
called her. She released the singles "Paid My
Dues", "One Day in Your Life",
"Why'd You Lie to Me" and "You'll Never
Be Alone" which reached #28 on the Adult
Contemporary chart in the U.S. The second single,
"One Day in Your Life", was the album's
biggest hit and was a top 10 single in several countries
and also was a #1 hit on the dance charts.
When the album was finally released in
the United States in May 2002, she dedicated the album
to Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes, who had died in a
car wreck the month before. Lisa "Left Eye"
Lopes was partly responsible for Anastacia's success,
since Lisa hosted MTV's The Cut where Anastacia got her
first break. Soon after she released a double disc
edition featuring two bonus hits, remixes for three of
the tracks on the album and two live tracks taken from a
Japan gig that was performed on the 13th September 2002.
Anastacia joined Shakira, Cher, Dixie Chicks and Celine
Dion for VH1's Divas Live in 2002 and she also
contributed the song "Love Is a Crime" to the
Chicago soundtrack. The song peaked at #1 on the Hot
Dance Music/Club Play chart and enjoyed moderate airplay
on Rhythmic/Dance format. Anastacia was selected to sing
the theme from 2002 FIFA World Cup: "Boom".
Anastacia album, Health scare: In January 2003,
Anastacia decided to have her breasts reduced due to
back strain. From a routine mamogram for the surgery she
discovered she had breast cancer. She immediately
successfully completed surgery and radiotherapy.
Anastacia subsequently established a fund through the
"Anastacia Fund" to promote awareness of
breast cancer amongst younger women.
She has attributed her health scare to being an
inspiration for the sound and content of her third
album. According to an interview she made in 2005 on a
British music station The Box, her voice lost its power
and she became unable to record and thus she spent a
long time writing and trying to create a sound she would
be finally happy with. As she said on Rovelive Australia
in 2004, she wanted to have more edge to her vocals as
she felt there was something missing from her previous
works. She brought in many rock instruments which
brought a new atmosphere to her music.
She also felt that she still needed the
funkiness and the pop as the singer felt that too much
edge would sound wrong with her voice. Out of this a new
sound was formed. She describes her sound as
"sprock" - a combination of soul, pop and
rock. She named the album after herself. The success of
"sprock" has influenced other artists.
Jamelia's new album has much more rock fused into to her
R&B sound e.g. Beware Of The Dog. P!nk's album I'm
Not Dead also touches on this style of music, as does
some work by Kelly Clarkson, Ashlee Simpson and
Charlotte Church.
Album success: Anastacia entered record studios
in September 2003 to begin recording her next album,
working with Glen Ballard, Dallas Austin, and Dave
Stewart for release in 2004. On the album, Anastacia
also collaborated with P.O.D. lead singer Sonny Sandoval
on the socially-conscious track "I Do".
The first single, released in March, was "Left
Outside Alone", which saw a change in direction for
Anastacia.
Anastacia proved to be a smash hit reaching the top of
the album charts in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands,
Australia, Greece, Germany, and Italy and number 2 in
Portugal and Spain. "Left Outside Alone"
proved to be equally successfully reaching number 1 in
Australia, Spain, Italy, Austria and Switzerland; number
2 in the Netherlands + Germany, number 3 in the UK and
reaching the top 5 on the composite European chart.
Strong airplay throughout Europe gave the song a Top 40
Charts world airplay ranking as one of the top five
songs played on top 40 radio stations throughout the
world in April 2004.
Unlike her first two albums, which were
released in her homeland of America, Anastacia was not,
despite being scheduled for release on three occasions.
"Left Outside Alone" was released twice, but
failed to pick up heavy airplay. It only gained sporadic
Adult Contemporary and Hot AC format airplay. Again, it
sparked Rhythmic/Dance format airplay and the dance mix
of "Left Outside Alone" peaked at #1 on the
Hot Dance Music/Club Play. After the original version of
"Left Outside Alone" failed to catch on
because of lukewarm promotional pushes, especially on
radio, the album was postponed and eventually cancelled
after the release date of August 30, 2004 past.
Anastacia released three further internationally
successful singles; "Sick and Tired" (which
gave her another #1 in Spain and another UK Top 5
single), "Welcome to My Truth" (her
best-selling hit in Spain), and the ballad "Heavy
on My Heart" proceeds from the sale of which went
towards her 'Anastacia Fund' (Charitable organisation
providing research funding for breast cancer).
A small batch of Anastacia the album was released with a
bonus DVD, Anastacia poster and slip case. The DVD
includes "Making Of Anastacia", "2002
Europe Promo Tour" & a photo gallery.
Pieces Of A Dream: a reflection on
her career: In late 2005, she released her first
greatest hits collection, entitled Pieces of a Dream,
named after a track of the same name. The album spawned
the hit singles Pieces of a Dream and the duet with Eros
Ramazzotti "I Belong to You", which was a huge
hit in Europe, charting and peaking in the top ten in
almost all the European countries.Even though Sony BMG
did force her to release this collection, Anastacia says
she is happy now that it was created as it was like a
"story book", or summary of the last five
years
Live At Last: Not long after the release of
"I Belong to You", Anastacia released her
first live DVD Live at Last on March 27, 2006 in Europe.
The DVD contains footage from concerts in Berlin and
Munich, music videos to her latest four singles (Left
Outside Alone [US version], Everything Burns [with Ben
Moody], Pieces Of A Dream and I Belong to You, with Eros
Ramazzotti), five alternative videos (I Do, Rearview,
Seasons Change, Underground Army and Time) to songs from
her selfnamed album, and a documentary about the coming
together of the tour.
Charity work and personal life: During her years
of success, Anastacia has supported a lot of people,
including charity events as Life Ball 2006 (Europe's
largest annual AIDS charity event), Make a Difference,
Challenge for the Children and more. Anastacia was one
of the fifteen artists to record their take on a Disney
song on the CD DisneyMania. Anastacia recorded
"Someday My Prince Will Come" from Snow White
and the Seven Dwarfs.
Anastacia was romantically linked to several men
throughout her career. Anastacia and Shawn Woods had a
relationship for 6 years and as Anastacia said herself
– he was the love of her life. Rumors say that they
split up because Anastacia found him in bed with another
woman, which would explain the song "Why'd You Lie
to Me" (in which Anastacia sings about a
relationship that crashed because her boyfriend was
cheating on her).[citation needed] She has also dated
Charles Ingram a couple of times, but according to
Anastacia they didn't really fit together as a couple,
so they decided to stay good friends. Anastacia had also
been dating Patrice Bouédibéla for over a year, when
she broke the news that it was over. She married her
bodyguard Wayne Newton in Mexico on April 21, 2007.
Anastacia has a tattoo below her neck, saying
"Forever" in an unusual font. She also has an
Ankh on her lower back, which appeared on her first
album. Since it represents "eternal life" it
now represents her.
Anastacia By s. Oliver: Anastacia by s. Oliver is
a clothes collection released in the fall of 2006 by
Anastacia and s. Oliver. She had said that she long
wanted to release a clothing line: "I have had the
idea of designing my own collection for a long time, but
waited for the right partner. s. Oliver came along just
at the right time. We got to know each other and found
that we not only harmonize well together as a brand, but
also have the same ideas about the look of 'Anastacia by
s. Oliver'.
There are many points that need to be
considered when designing a collection: What trends are
in, what colors, what fabrics, what styles ... That is
why I am happy that my work with the s. Oliver design
team is going so well and that we are implementing these
themes together. For example, I think it is also very
important that my clothes can be worn in different
sizes." The collection reflects Anastacia’s
personal style and her versatility. The look of the line
is designed to be "sensual, feminine and
sexy". A Limited Edition CD named Welcome To My
Style is available for free to costumers that spend 60
euros or more in the clothes in November. The CD
includes the following already released tracks: Underdog
(B-Side of "Cowboys & Kisses"), Get Ready
(B-Side of "Left Outside Alone"), Boom (FIFA
2002 World Cup official song), Funk Medley (B-Side of
"Paid My Dues"). |
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