Martika
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Marta Marrero (born May 18, 1969), better known as Martika, is a Cuban-American singer and actress.
Marrero got her start as "Gloria" on the Disney Channel kids show Kids, Inc. about a group of neighbourhood kids who rose to local fame by singing staged productions at a corner malt shop. She was quickly snagged by CBS Records as a potential, Madonna-esque pop star. Her first album, Martika, spawned the number one hit of 1989 the anti drug abuse song "Toy Soldiers", but was, as is often the case with American pop stars, an even huger success abroad. (She had foreign hits with "Water", "More Than You Know", "I Feel the Earth Move" and "Alibis".) In 1991, she was approached by Prince and became one of the so-called "Prince Protégés". Her second album, Martika's Kitchen, was an American flop (but for the radio favourites "Love...Thy Will Be Done" and the title track.) However, the album was again a huge success abroad, though on a lesser scale, spurning hits with the songs "Coloured Kisses" and "Temptation". However, it faded fast on the charts and went out of print.
She was encouraged by her agent to combine her love of film and music by scoring soundtracks and in 1990 she wrote and recorded the song "Blue Eyes are Sensitive to the Light" for the soundtrack to the film Arachnaphobia. Unfortunately the producers of the album did not like her vocals and so the song was re-recorded by Sara Hickman for the film, though Martika retained her writing credit.
Martika attempted to revitalize her acting career by playing lounge singer/undercover cop Delia Mendez on the early 1990s cop show Wiseguys, but the part was a temporary one and eventually she faded from the public eye around 1993.
In 1997 a greatest hits album entitled The Best of Martika: More Than You Know was released. It achieved sales figures of over 500,000 copies internationally. (The title was a joke in that most Americans consider Martika to have been a flash in the pan, unaware of her widespread international success, particularly with the song "More Than You Know".)
During the 2000 explosion of Latin pop music Martika attempted to regain interest by singing backing vocals on various projects and contributing lyrics, but she failed to grab any major label attention. Instead she built a web site in 2001 (martika.net) for her fans, and released a remix of a newly self-recorded song called The Journey. The song, however, garnered only 5000 hits as a free download on mp3.com's music service. Eventually the web site shut down and Martika seemingly faded, once again, into Hollywood oblivion.
In 2003 Martika joined forces with a musician named Michael Mozart to form the band "Oppera". Changing her sound to that of goth-pop, the she and Mozart released Oppera's debut album "Violince" in 2004. Also in the same year, Eminem used a sample of her "Toy Soldiers" song for a track on his Encore album, called "Like Toy Soldiers", which entered the UK Singles chart at No. 1. In response, Martika's UK Greatest Hits album was repackaged with title altered to "Toy Soldiers: The Best of Martika". This reflected the fact that the song was her biggest hit in the U.S.; a bio was added to the album insert reflecting the new Eminem sample, though it mistakenly asserted that she had not released any albums since "Martika's Kitchen".
Oppera released self-titled second album, "Oppera", in 2005.
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Discography
Albums
- 1989 "Martika" #15 US (Gold) UK #11 (Platinum)
- 1991 "Martika's Kitchen" #111 US UK #15 (Gold)
- 1997 "The Best of Martika: More Than You Know" (UK Release)
- 2004 "Violince" (with band Oppera)
- 2005 "Oppera" (with band Oppera)
- 2005 "Toy Soldiers: the Best of Martika" (US Release)
Hit singles
- from "Martika"
- 1989 "Toy Soldiers" #1 US, #5 UK
- 1989 "I Feel the Earth Move" #25 US, #7 UK
- 1990 "More Than You Know" #18 US, #15 UK
- from "Martika's Kitchen"
- 1991 "Love... Thy Will Be Done" #10 US, #9 UK
- 1991 "Martika's Kitchen" #92 US, #17 UK
- 1992 "Coloured Kisses" #41 UK
External link
- oppera.net (http://www.oppera.net)nl:Martika