Post by ocelot on Jul 28, 2005 22:46:10 GMT -5
Here are Delta's biographies for her first two albums.
Innocent Eyes
It's just the beginning, is something that Delta Goodrem says all the time. But what a beginning - Born To Try, the first single from Delta's debut album, took the Australian charts by storm, going to number one just after Delta's 18th birthday. It stayed in the Top 5 for more than three months, going triple platinum for sales of more than 210,000 copies. Born To Try then went on to enter the UK charts at number three, spending 11 weeks in the Top 40, and it went to number one in New Zealand.
"I love how Born To Try connected with people," Delta says. "I've had all sorts of people come up to me, from all age groups who tell me, 'I play this at home all the time.'"
Then came the second single, Lost Without You. A number one debut in Australia and three months in the Australian Top 10.
Innocent Eyes, Delta’s stunning debut album, also entered the Australian charts at number one, knocking off Norah Jones. Not even a new Madonna album could displace Delta.
But Delta's right - it is just the beginning. With a voice that soars, she is a young pop discovery, brimming with youthful zest, energy and innocence as is evident on her sensational debut album Innocent Eyes. And it's an album full of surprises. As Delta sings in Running Away: "Running away from predictable, Miss Reliable, so methodical/Be individual, an original". This is no manufactured star straight off the pop production line.
Delta's worked with a stellar cast, including the True North production and songwriting team (Gary Barlow and Eliot Kennedy), Ric Wake (the producer who has worked with Celine Dion, Jennifer Lopez and Mariah Carey), Matthew Gerrard (Mandy Moore, BB Mak), Vince Pizzinga (Midnight Oil, Danielle Spencer), David Nicholas (INXS, Elton John, George), The Rembrandts and Mark Holden.
But this is Delta's story. She's forging her own path, creating her own history. Much of Innocent Eyes sounds like pages ripped from her diary. She wrote or co-wrote nearly all the tracks. The album's striking opening line is, "Doing everything that I believe in".
" I wanted to make an album that reflected me at this time in my life," Delta explains. "Every song takes me to a place where I can rememebr waht happenned."
Since delivering Innocent Eyes, Delta's career has soared both locally and internationally. From the time of its release more than ten months ago, the album has spent 29 weeks in the top spot on the National ARIA charts, making it the second longest running album ever at #1 in Australian chart history, and is officially 14x Platinum with sales in excess of one million copies in Australia alone - incredible for a country where gold status is 35,000. Five number one singles including "Born To Try", "Lost Without You", "Innocent Eyes" , "Not Me Not I" and "Predictable" have ensured Delta's local record sales have topped the 1.7 million mark and given her the Australian record for becoming the first ever artist to have five Number One singles from a debut album. Each of the tracks have also topped the national airplay charts with her fourth and fifth singles, "Not Me Not I" and "Predictable" reaching the top after a record two weeks at radio. No Australian woman – not even Kylie – has made such an impact with her debut release.
And it hasn't stopped there for Delta. Her extraordinary talents were recognised by the Australian Recording Industry at the 2003 ARIA Chart #1's Ceremony with the young performer taking home four gongs for her phenomenal chart success this year.
Shortly after her record ten nominations were announced for the 17th Annual ARIA Awards where she ultimately won seven of the eight categories she was nominated in along with the public voted Video Hits Award for Best Video and Channel V Oz Music Artist Of The Year, taking home nine honours in total. Despite her continuing battle with Hodgkins disease, Delta attended the ceremony, fulfilling a life long dream of going to the ARIAs.
The talented performer also picked up MTV's International Viewers Choice Award for her single "Born To Try" at the Annual Video Music Awards Ceremony held in New York, and earlier in the year won a Logie Award (the Australian equivalent of the Emmys) for Most Popular Female New Talent.
Internationally, Delta has also been embraced, with three top ten singles and multiple platinum album sales in the UK and New Zealand, where 'Innocent Eyes' charted at #2 and #7 respectively. and stayed in the UK top 20 for almost 6 months. The album continues to be released in more & more territories across Europe, with her worldwide album sales now exceeding 2.1 million.
With statistics like these there's no doubt, Innocent Eyes is an album that heralds the arrival of a major new talent. An artist who's doing things her way. Grounded, focused and ambitious. "In my own time," Delta sings on one of Innocent Eyes' many standout tracks, "it'll be mine."
Do you remember when you were 15. And the kids at school called you a fool. Because you took the chance to dream?
Delta Goodrem is no newcomer. She started in the entertainment business at the age of seven, acting in TV commercials and Australian television shows such as Hey Dad, A Country Practice and Police Rescue. Delta loved sports, particularly basketball and skiing, but music is her passion so Delta saved her acting money to make a demo CD.
At the age of 12, Delta recorded her demo CD, with five songs she'd written. She included her version of the Australian national anthem because she dreamed of one day singing at a game for her football team - the Sydney Swans. "Anyone's allowed to dream, I say," Delta says.
Delta sent the CD to the Swans and they sent it on to one of the club's biggest supporters, Australian manager Glenn Wheatley, the man who guided the Little River Band and John Farnham to mega success. Seeing a red and white envelope in his letterbox, Glenn ripped open the package to find Delta's songs.
Over the next two years, Glenn helped Delta develop her career, before Sony signed her at the age of 15.
Inspired by everything from Silverchair to Incubus to Jeff Buckley and "the Diva Girls" - Mariah and Celine; at first, Delta struggled to find her own direction. Then she discovered her mantra: Just have fun and sing from the heart.
"No point in talking what you should have been. And regretting the things that went on. Life's full of mistakes, destinies and fate. Remove the clouds, look at the bigger picture".
The title-track of Delta's debut album is her story. "I really wanted a song with a bit of a classical feel because I've been doing classical piano for 10 years," she explains. "This song is about looking at the world with innocent eyes, that enthusiasm, which I never want to lose."
In 2002, Delta landed a role on the Australian television institution Neighbours, a show that started on air just a few months after Delta was born. Playing the shy singing schoolgirl Nina Tucker, Delta got to debut Born To Try on the show. Though she's always getting into trouble for singing on the set, Delta says, "Neighbours has been fantastic."
Now, the girl who plays piano barefoot is taking her music to the world, and the world is listening.
"I love performing. I do this so I can get up and sing for people. It's a big world and there's so much to work for. I do have a lot of goals. I want to take my music to people and tell my story, perhaps one day be singing at the Grammys and the Brits and the ARIAs. Just world domination, I'm not asking for much." She laughs, before adding: "It's just the beginning." Delta smiles, those innocent eyes sparkling.
Mistaken Identity
MUSIC has always been there for the good times in Delta Goodrem’s life.
And it was music that was there yet again during the bad times. Indeed, music was one of the main comforts for Delta during the most testing period of her life.
Songs kept whizzing around in her head: melodies, harmonies, lyrics – many deeper and darker than those that helped her debut, Innocent Eyes, find its way into over a million homes – and hearts – in Australia.
Her second album, Mistaken Identity, is the multi-layered product of that well-documented year.
“It’s a more grown up album,” Delta, notes. “My music changed because my life had changed; the whole world around me had changed. My music had to reflect that.”
The childlike fantasies that fuelled Innocent Eyes were replaced by a new and often harsh reality that provided endless fuel for lyrical inspiration.
‘Extraordinary Day’ (July 8) freeze-frames the day Delta was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma (“who would have thought when chance came calling that this would be my defining story”), ‘The Analyst’ captures the hours of self-analysis the singer conducted (“trying to make sense of her life, digging round in the dirt, she’s a slave to the work”), ‘Be Strong’ is a rallying call for confidence while ‘Mistaken Identity’ is Delta stating for the record exactly where her head is at.
“There are a lot of lyrics I wouldn’t have used on the first album,” Delta admits.
“In ‘Mistaken Identity’ I sing `I played the role of the nice girl next door who gets cut like a knife’, I mention `emotional suicide’ in Electrical Storm: there’s some intense lyrics in there. It was an intense year. I mean, it wouldn’t be right if I didn’t acknowledge what went on; everyone knows what went on. I feel like I know people personally – even though I don’t, but I feel I had to go into depth; get things out of the way, go through the journey and end with ‘You Are My Rock’, which is a thank you song.”
Every note, every lyric and emotion has been placed on the album precisely that way for a reason: plenty of outsiders have told their side of Delta’s story – this is hers.
“There are dark songs on there like ‘Extraordinary Day’, but if I’d brought out an album that was all happy and had only songs about how great life was people would think `What is she talking about?’ It wouldn’t make any sense.
“But while there are some intense tracks on there it’s still a very listenable record. There are some really relaxed songs on there, some motivational songs and there’s some really heart-wrenching music that still makes me cry when they come on. And there’s songs that make you want to get up and dance around. I think there’s a really nice mix. I’m really proud of the record.”
It was a record whose gestation was completely different to Innocent Eyes.
In those days, Delta would film Neighbours from early morning to late at night, then zoom into a studio from 9pm to 4am to get those songs out of her head and onto a CD.
This time around Delta had nothing but time. Her illness and subsequent recovery cleared out a ridiculously busy schedule. She could concentrate on her first love: music.
“This time around I had time to think `What kind of song do I want to create here?’,” Delta says.
“I really felt the sky was the limit with this record, you could do anything in a song. I didn’t feel limited at all. There were a lot more options, a lot more paths I could go down, more directions I could choose. “
One of the key changes in the songwriting personnel was Delta meeting Guy Chambers; the British songwriter/producer behind most of Robbie Williams’ best songs. He’s also worked with everyone from Jewel to Charlotte Church to Andrea Bocelli.
Chambers had been keeping an eye on Delta’s career – impressed with her songwriting skills and heartfelt vocals. The partnership resulted in several of Mistaken Identity’s key tracks – including the No.1 hit ‘Out Of The Blue’.
“'It's really unusual to work with somebody so talented, young, and brave. Who's not scared to take risks and who has the most emotional voice in pop music,” Chambers says. ”You cannot help but believe every word Delta sings.”
“Guy’s such a classy producer,” Delta says. “He was such an inspiration to work with. I felt we had a really good connection on a musical level; he does a lot of classical music as well. We tried to make sure we found a sound together, to find what we could both bring out of each other to create something unique and special. Once we had ‘Out Of The Blue’ we knew we’d found it and we took it from there and wrote ‘Sanctuary’ and ‘Electric Storm’.”
Other songwriters Delta co-wrote with include Billy Mann on ‘Mistaken Identity’ and ‘Last Night On Earth’, Cathy Dennis (who co-wrote Innocent Eyes’ Throw It Away) on ‘Sanctuary’, Matthew Gerard (who wrote Delta’s second No.1 Lost Without You) on the emotional ‘Be Strong’, Gary Barlow and Elliot Kennedy (who co-wrote Not Me Not I) and Delta’s close friend Vince Pizzinga (co-author of Innocent Eyes) on ‘Extraordinary Day’.
“This album has more different colours and shades, it’s got more colours of me than the first album did,” Delta says.
It also houses her first duet: (Only) ‘Almost Here’, with former Westlife singer Brian McFadden. “I loved singing that,” Delta says. “It’s a break-up song where we’re talking to each other – the girl’s saying when she’s with him he’s almost there and that’s not enough. I just loved that song. I think it’s a really important element to have on the record.”
Overall, Mistaken Identity is the ultimate statement on the highs – and lows – of the last two years of Delta Goodrem’s charmed life.
“There’s a definite story in the tracklisting,” Delta says. “I felt I had to be really honest. Songs that people could still relate to but songs that also confronted issues. This past chapter of my life has been such an intense one and I wanted people to know my thoughts.”
(http://www.deltagoodrem.com)
This is what I know about Delta's US album:
- it's a mixture of her two albums and some new tracks and mostly new versions of her songs from Innocent Eyes
- the album is to be called "Born to Try" and is to be out this fall
- the first single is "Lost Without You" and is already at radio
My favourite Delta songs are:
The Analyst
Not Me Not I
Mistaken Identity
Silence Be Heard (a B-side to her Mistaken Identity single)
Disorientated
Last Night on Earth
The Riddle (B-side to A Little too Late)
Innocent Eyes
It's just the beginning, is something that Delta Goodrem says all the time. But what a beginning - Born To Try, the first single from Delta's debut album, took the Australian charts by storm, going to number one just after Delta's 18th birthday. It stayed in the Top 5 for more than three months, going triple platinum for sales of more than 210,000 copies. Born To Try then went on to enter the UK charts at number three, spending 11 weeks in the Top 40, and it went to number one in New Zealand.
"I love how Born To Try connected with people," Delta says. "I've had all sorts of people come up to me, from all age groups who tell me, 'I play this at home all the time.'"
Then came the second single, Lost Without You. A number one debut in Australia and three months in the Australian Top 10.
Innocent Eyes, Delta’s stunning debut album, also entered the Australian charts at number one, knocking off Norah Jones. Not even a new Madonna album could displace Delta.
But Delta's right - it is just the beginning. With a voice that soars, she is a young pop discovery, brimming with youthful zest, energy and innocence as is evident on her sensational debut album Innocent Eyes. And it's an album full of surprises. As Delta sings in Running Away: "Running away from predictable, Miss Reliable, so methodical/Be individual, an original". This is no manufactured star straight off the pop production line.
Delta's worked with a stellar cast, including the True North production and songwriting team (Gary Barlow and Eliot Kennedy), Ric Wake (the producer who has worked with Celine Dion, Jennifer Lopez and Mariah Carey), Matthew Gerrard (Mandy Moore, BB Mak), Vince Pizzinga (Midnight Oil, Danielle Spencer), David Nicholas (INXS, Elton John, George), The Rembrandts and Mark Holden.
But this is Delta's story. She's forging her own path, creating her own history. Much of Innocent Eyes sounds like pages ripped from her diary. She wrote or co-wrote nearly all the tracks. The album's striking opening line is, "Doing everything that I believe in".
" I wanted to make an album that reflected me at this time in my life," Delta explains. "Every song takes me to a place where I can rememebr waht happenned."
Since delivering Innocent Eyes, Delta's career has soared both locally and internationally. From the time of its release more than ten months ago, the album has spent 29 weeks in the top spot on the National ARIA charts, making it the second longest running album ever at #1 in Australian chart history, and is officially 14x Platinum with sales in excess of one million copies in Australia alone - incredible for a country where gold status is 35,000. Five number one singles including "Born To Try", "Lost Without You", "Innocent Eyes" , "Not Me Not I" and "Predictable" have ensured Delta's local record sales have topped the 1.7 million mark and given her the Australian record for becoming the first ever artist to have five Number One singles from a debut album. Each of the tracks have also topped the national airplay charts with her fourth and fifth singles, "Not Me Not I" and "Predictable" reaching the top after a record two weeks at radio. No Australian woman – not even Kylie – has made such an impact with her debut release.
And it hasn't stopped there for Delta. Her extraordinary talents were recognised by the Australian Recording Industry at the 2003 ARIA Chart #1's Ceremony with the young performer taking home four gongs for her phenomenal chart success this year.
Shortly after her record ten nominations were announced for the 17th Annual ARIA Awards where she ultimately won seven of the eight categories she was nominated in along with the public voted Video Hits Award for Best Video and Channel V Oz Music Artist Of The Year, taking home nine honours in total. Despite her continuing battle with Hodgkins disease, Delta attended the ceremony, fulfilling a life long dream of going to the ARIAs.
The talented performer also picked up MTV's International Viewers Choice Award for her single "Born To Try" at the Annual Video Music Awards Ceremony held in New York, and earlier in the year won a Logie Award (the Australian equivalent of the Emmys) for Most Popular Female New Talent.
Internationally, Delta has also been embraced, with three top ten singles and multiple platinum album sales in the UK and New Zealand, where 'Innocent Eyes' charted at #2 and #7 respectively. and stayed in the UK top 20 for almost 6 months. The album continues to be released in more & more territories across Europe, with her worldwide album sales now exceeding 2.1 million.
With statistics like these there's no doubt, Innocent Eyes is an album that heralds the arrival of a major new talent. An artist who's doing things her way. Grounded, focused and ambitious. "In my own time," Delta sings on one of Innocent Eyes' many standout tracks, "it'll be mine."
Do you remember when you were 15. And the kids at school called you a fool. Because you took the chance to dream?
Delta Goodrem is no newcomer. She started in the entertainment business at the age of seven, acting in TV commercials and Australian television shows such as Hey Dad, A Country Practice and Police Rescue. Delta loved sports, particularly basketball and skiing, but music is her passion so Delta saved her acting money to make a demo CD.
At the age of 12, Delta recorded her demo CD, with five songs she'd written. She included her version of the Australian national anthem because she dreamed of one day singing at a game for her football team - the Sydney Swans. "Anyone's allowed to dream, I say," Delta says.
Delta sent the CD to the Swans and they sent it on to one of the club's biggest supporters, Australian manager Glenn Wheatley, the man who guided the Little River Band and John Farnham to mega success. Seeing a red and white envelope in his letterbox, Glenn ripped open the package to find Delta's songs.
Over the next two years, Glenn helped Delta develop her career, before Sony signed her at the age of 15.
Inspired by everything from Silverchair to Incubus to Jeff Buckley and "the Diva Girls" - Mariah and Celine; at first, Delta struggled to find her own direction. Then she discovered her mantra: Just have fun and sing from the heart.
"No point in talking what you should have been. And regretting the things that went on. Life's full of mistakes, destinies and fate. Remove the clouds, look at the bigger picture".
The title-track of Delta's debut album is her story. "I really wanted a song with a bit of a classical feel because I've been doing classical piano for 10 years," she explains. "This song is about looking at the world with innocent eyes, that enthusiasm, which I never want to lose."
In 2002, Delta landed a role on the Australian television institution Neighbours, a show that started on air just a few months after Delta was born. Playing the shy singing schoolgirl Nina Tucker, Delta got to debut Born To Try on the show. Though she's always getting into trouble for singing on the set, Delta says, "Neighbours has been fantastic."
Now, the girl who plays piano barefoot is taking her music to the world, and the world is listening.
"I love performing. I do this so I can get up and sing for people. It's a big world and there's so much to work for. I do have a lot of goals. I want to take my music to people and tell my story, perhaps one day be singing at the Grammys and the Brits and the ARIAs. Just world domination, I'm not asking for much." She laughs, before adding: "It's just the beginning." Delta smiles, those innocent eyes sparkling.
Mistaken Identity
MUSIC has always been there for the good times in Delta Goodrem’s life.
And it was music that was there yet again during the bad times. Indeed, music was one of the main comforts for Delta during the most testing period of her life.
Songs kept whizzing around in her head: melodies, harmonies, lyrics – many deeper and darker than those that helped her debut, Innocent Eyes, find its way into over a million homes – and hearts – in Australia.
Her second album, Mistaken Identity, is the multi-layered product of that well-documented year.
“It’s a more grown up album,” Delta, notes. “My music changed because my life had changed; the whole world around me had changed. My music had to reflect that.”
The childlike fantasies that fuelled Innocent Eyes were replaced by a new and often harsh reality that provided endless fuel for lyrical inspiration.
‘Extraordinary Day’ (July 8) freeze-frames the day Delta was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma (“who would have thought when chance came calling that this would be my defining story”), ‘The Analyst’ captures the hours of self-analysis the singer conducted (“trying to make sense of her life, digging round in the dirt, she’s a slave to the work”), ‘Be Strong’ is a rallying call for confidence while ‘Mistaken Identity’ is Delta stating for the record exactly where her head is at.
“There are a lot of lyrics I wouldn’t have used on the first album,” Delta admits.
“In ‘Mistaken Identity’ I sing `I played the role of the nice girl next door who gets cut like a knife’, I mention `emotional suicide’ in Electrical Storm: there’s some intense lyrics in there. It was an intense year. I mean, it wouldn’t be right if I didn’t acknowledge what went on; everyone knows what went on. I feel like I know people personally – even though I don’t, but I feel I had to go into depth; get things out of the way, go through the journey and end with ‘You Are My Rock’, which is a thank you song.”
Every note, every lyric and emotion has been placed on the album precisely that way for a reason: plenty of outsiders have told their side of Delta’s story – this is hers.
“There are dark songs on there like ‘Extraordinary Day’, but if I’d brought out an album that was all happy and had only songs about how great life was people would think `What is she talking about?’ It wouldn’t make any sense.
“But while there are some intense tracks on there it’s still a very listenable record. There are some really relaxed songs on there, some motivational songs and there’s some really heart-wrenching music that still makes me cry when they come on. And there’s songs that make you want to get up and dance around. I think there’s a really nice mix. I’m really proud of the record.”
It was a record whose gestation was completely different to Innocent Eyes.
In those days, Delta would film Neighbours from early morning to late at night, then zoom into a studio from 9pm to 4am to get those songs out of her head and onto a CD.
This time around Delta had nothing but time. Her illness and subsequent recovery cleared out a ridiculously busy schedule. She could concentrate on her first love: music.
“This time around I had time to think `What kind of song do I want to create here?’,” Delta says.
“I really felt the sky was the limit with this record, you could do anything in a song. I didn’t feel limited at all. There were a lot more options, a lot more paths I could go down, more directions I could choose. “
One of the key changes in the songwriting personnel was Delta meeting Guy Chambers; the British songwriter/producer behind most of Robbie Williams’ best songs. He’s also worked with everyone from Jewel to Charlotte Church to Andrea Bocelli.
Chambers had been keeping an eye on Delta’s career – impressed with her songwriting skills and heartfelt vocals. The partnership resulted in several of Mistaken Identity’s key tracks – including the No.1 hit ‘Out Of The Blue’.
“'It's really unusual to work with somebody so talented, young, and brave. Who's not scared to take risks and who has the most emotional voice in pop music,” Chambers says. ”You cannot help but believe every word Delta sings.”
“Guy’s such a classy producer,” Delta says. “He was such an inspiration to work with. I felt we had a really good connection on a musical level; he does a lot of classical music as well. We tried to make sure we found a sound together, to find what we could both bring out of each other to create something unique and special. Once we had ‘Out Of The Blue’ we knew we’d found it and we took it from there and wrote ‘Sanctuary’ and ‘Electric Storm’.”
Other songwriters Delta co-wrote with include Billy Mann on ‘Mistaken Identity’ and ‘Last Night On Earth’, Cathy Dennis (who co-wrote Innocent Eyes’ Throw It Away) on ‘Sanctuary’, Matthew Gerard (who wrote Delta’s second No.1 Lost Without You) on the emotional ‘Be Strong’, Gary Barlow and Elliot Kennedy (who co-wrote Not Me Not I) and Delta’s close friend Vince Pizzinga (co-author of Innocent Eyes) on ‘Extraordinary Day’.
“This album has more different colours and shades, it’s got more colours of me than the first album did,” Delta says.
It also houses her first duet: (Only) ‘Almost Here’, with former Westlife singer Brian McFadden. “I loved singing that,” Delta says. “It’s a break-up song where we’re talking to each other – the girl’s saying when she’s with him he’s almost there and that’s not enough. I just loved that song. I think it’s a really important element to have on the record.”
Overall, Mistaken Identity is the ultimate statement on the highs – and lows – of the last two years of Delta Goodrem’s charmed life.
“There’s a definite story in the tracklisting,” Delta says. “I felt I had to be really honest. Songs that people could still relate to but songs that also confronted issues. This past chapter of my life has been such an intense one and I wanted people to know my thoughts.”
(http://www.deltagoodrem.com)
This is what I know about Delta's US album:
- it's a mixture of her two albums and some new tracks and mostly new versions of her songs from Innocent Eyes
- the album is to be called "Born to Try" and is to be out this fall
- the first single is "Lost Without You" and is already at radio
My favourite Delta songs are:
The Analyst
Not Me Not I
Mistaken Identity
Silence Be Heard (a B-side to her Mistaken Identity single)
Disorientated
Last Night on Earth
The Riddle (B-side to A Little too Late)