Katie Melua

Просто удивительно, что до сих пор никто ничего...
Мало того, что по музыке грандиозно, так еще и девушка прекрасная. К тому же, в известном смысле, наша с вами соотечественица.
Для начала,пожалуй, сюда:


На сегодняшний день мой фаворит: "My Aphrodisiac Is You". Но есть и другие, не менее восхитительные песни.
Мужики, рекомендую... ( Хотя, уверен, дамам тоже очень понравится).

В тему ДЖАЗ...

Сегодня у Katie Melua вышел новый альбом.

http://www.katiemelua.com/releases/pictures.html

Tracklist:

1. Mary Pickford (Used To Eat Roses)
2. It's All In My Head
3. If The Lights Go Out
4. What I Miss About You
5. Spellbound
6. What It Says On The Tin
7. Scary Films
8. Perfect Circle
9. Ghost Town
10. If You Were A Sailboat
11. Dirty Dice
12. In My Secret Life

Released October 1st 2007

Katie Melua: "The one thing that I’ve learnt from making three albums is that you don’t know what is going to happen when you start recording. The fact that I am a bit older, have different interests, have more experiences, and that I have grown and developed as an artist means that this album would be different in some way from the first two. I would not want to just try and emulate the success of the previous albums but I also don’t feel the need to change for change’s sake or to please anyone other than myself.

I’m really proud of ‘Pictures”’ says Katie of the finished album. “It definitely feels like the third part of the trilogy that Mike and I have collaborated on as a creative team. It stays true to what we have always tried to focus on - the lyrics and melody, with emotional songs that hark back to the roots of songwriting.”

British singer Katie Melua has revealed that she prefers privacy and likes to avoid being under the public glare, unlike her fellow singer Amy Winehouse.

She insisted that the kind of attention that Winehouse gets from the media is more focused on her personal life rather than her music career, something that she would never want for herself.

"I think the coverage Amy Winehouse gets is not the sort of coverage that a musician would want to get at all," the Sun quoted her, as saying.

"It seems to focus on her personal life quite a bit, and I'd absolutely hate that. I hope she's fine with it and she doesn't find it too hard," she said.

Katie admitted that she would often go out for drinks, but claimed the places she chose would be the ones where she could avoid the media.

"I do go out boozing, but just not to the same places as Amy and Lily. You've got to know where to go to avoid press," she told.

She further said that she preferred hanging out with the people with whom she became friends before she became a successful singer.

"All my friends are the same friends I had a few years ago - I'm not going to abandon them just because I've got a career," she said.

"I don't really know Amy and Lily, so it'd be quite weird to just phone them up and start hanging around with them," she added.

Referring to Lily Allen's loose tongue and her row with Cheryl Cole, she said: "I'd rather my attention was on my music rather than that particular artist. "

"But each to their own. You've got freedom of speech and you can say whatever you want, it's her career so she can do whatever she likes," she added.

When Nine Million Bicycles first appeared on our playlist, the phones went beserk every time we played it, with people wanting to know who the artist was and where they could get it. The artist, Katie Melua, has now released her third album, the cinematically-themed Pictures.

If you like Nine Million Bicycles, or Melua's earlier work in general, you'll like this album. Her sweet voice is still well in evidence, the tone still mellow, smooth and hypnotic. You certainly can't say Katie Melua isn't consistent.

In fact, Pictures is possibly a little too consistent - with sweet, smooth song after sweet, smooth song. It's a marked contrast to Kate Miller-Heidke's new release Little Eve, another album from a solo female artist. Where Little Eve is a kaleidescope of variation, exploring different themes, influences and vocal styles, Pictures concentrates on one style and idea, and explores it deeply.

For me, the highlight of this album is the first track, Mary Pickford. It stands above the sameness by the sheer peculiarity of the subject matter - popular culture has no shortage of songs about love, but I don't think I've ever heard a song about the subject of my film studies thesis!

Jodie van de Wetering

British songbird Katie Melua is wild about South Africa.

The world-renowned singer, who spent the past week in the country promoting her new album, yesterday said she could not get enough of the country’s wildlife, especially the penguins in Cape Town.

Melua, who jetted out of the country last night, spent a week in Cape Town and Joburg to promote her third album, Pictures.

The singer, who also plays guitar, stormed into the international music scene in 2001 with her debut Call Off The Search, followed by her multi-platinum selling album Piece By Piece, making her the biggest- selling British female artist last year.

Speaking from her Fourways hotel, Melua said: “ The next time I come I’m going on a safari. I visited a cheetah sanctuary and spent time at Boulders in Cape Town with the penguins, which I loved.”

Melua, who remains a favourite with South African audiences, describes her new album as “different” from her others, which were about love and relationships

She said: “We did [the album] by making a looser concept around films. Generally the album is about love and relationships, but it’s put into the context of movies.”

Melua made headlines in South Africa when she performed at Nelson Mandela’s 46664 concert in 2005 alongside international heavyweights Queen and Annie Lennox.

Her busy touring schedule is prohibiting her from performing in the concert this year.

Since she was discovered by songwriter and producer Mike Batt in 2003, Melua has sold more than seven million copies worldwide and was nominated for the Brit Awards’ Best Pop Act and Best Female Solo Artist last year.

The biggest phone bid in Children in Need history yesterday raised a staggering £250,000 for a special show by singers Katie Melua and Aled Jones.
Sir Terry Wogan said of the call to his Radio Two breakfast show: "It was the most amazing, the most wonderful day I've ever had on radio.

2007-11-16

Singer KATIE MELUA is unfazed by rumours she is gay - because she likes to keep her fans guessing about her sexuality.

Speculation the 23-year-old is a lesbian began when she split from Kooks frontman Luke Pritchard in 2005.

But Melua insists she won't bow down to pressure to discuss her sexuality.

She says, "People can think whatever they like. I like to keep some mystique around my public image. In a sense the less you give, the better."

Katie Melua is perched on a stool singing, swinging a little cowboybooted foot in time to a song that is destined to seduce her fans with its sweetness.


Her voice is pure and unadorned, bereft of artifice or embellishment and unsupported by backing vocals.

Sitting there singing in her unpretentious way - there are no big, starry gestures from Katie - she looks almost vulnerable, her small, girlish frame dwarfed by her acoustic guitar.

But do not be deceived.

She may be unassuming and entirely devoid of the self-importance that so often accompanies celebrity, but Melua is also tough, single-minded and utterly resistant to manipulation.

Take her story, for starters.


Born in the grim former Soviet state of Georgia, Katie glimpsed the glamour and colour of life in the West only through films.

"People seemed so happy and so rich in the West. I felt envious. I thought: "It's the luck of the draw. Where you are born shapes your whole life."'

Her parents - heart surgeon Amiran and his wife Tamara, a nurse - obviously harboured similar thoughts.

Not content with a life of poverty and privation (the electricity supply was erratic; water often had to be lugged up to their flat in buckets), they emigrated to the United Kingdom, ironically pitching up in the grimmest corner of Ireland - Belfast's Falls Road.

But even its bleakness felt brightly colour-washed to eight-year-old Katie who marvelled that the shops were so full of toys.

Without a word of English when she arrived, she quickly grew fluent.

She won a place at a school of performing arts where she was talent-spotted and offered a £2 million recording contract.

Her first album topped the UK charts, she became Britain's biggestselling female singer and the Queen - for whom Katie performed at a Royal Variety Show - said she was a fan.

Her third album Pictures is currently No 1 in the European album charts, having usurped Bruce Springsteen.

The story of Katie Melua is a fairy tale for the 21st century.

But you do not achieve such success merely through luck.

Determination and an inordinate amount of sheer grit has brought Katie to where she is now - which, today, happens to be a rehearsal room by the Thames in London where she is running through her latest single in preparation for a performance on Radio 2's Ken Bruce Show.

She exudes quiet authority and her attention to detail is punctilious.

When one of the session musicians suggests they repeat "the chorus", she interjects, polite but firm: "What are you calling the chorus? Do you mean the bridge? There isn't actually a chorus in this song."

The lyrics of Mary Pickford the second single to be released from the Pictures album, are a witty tribute to the stars of the silver screen, who in 1919 formed the independent film company United Artists.

These pioneers returned artistic control and profits to the actors, and were seen as a threat by the power-hungry major movie companies of the day.

For the single's cover Katie has transformed herself into Charlie Chaplin, one of the stars behind the film company's formation along with Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and director D. W. Griffith.

"I like the similarity between United Artists and my record label," she says. "Working with a small company we have stood up to the big guys, proving that an artist on an independent label can be successful around the world."

Mary Pickford has the same winsome appeal as the quirky Nine Million Bicycles, a surprise hit from her second album, and both songs were written by her mentor and collaborator Mike Batt.

He signed her to his label Dramatico after hearing her sing in her final term at the BRIT School for Performing Arts in Croydon, South London.

She was just 19 when she first made the charts.

Batt, who despite an illustrious musical career since has never shaken off an association with The Wombles (as a singer, songwriter and producer he had eight hit singles and four gold albums with them), has also been called Melua's Svengali.

She, however, objects to the term.

"Because he was so much more experienced than me, I have always been perceived as the naive girl coming into the industry," she contends.

"People thought he was in control, that he told me what to do.

"He has certainly given me lots of advice - he has been my teacher and friend - but we have had plenty of disagreements, and when there is one, I get the final say."

Melua has always valued her artistic integrity. She sees herself as a musician, not a celebrity.

When, in the early days, Batt tried to persuade her that a spread in the glossy magazine Hello! would benefit her career, she resisted.

Likewise, you won't see any glamour pictures of her in lads' mags.

The reasons are rooted in the culture of her homeland.

She still has relatives in Georgia and retains affection for the country of her birth, but deplores its attitude to women.

"Ten years ago it was not uncommon for Georgians to marry at 14 or 15," explains Katie.

"Women were expected to preserve their virginity, but that didn't apply to men. That infuriated me.

"I thought it was fair enough if the men stuck to the same rules. And there was this awful phase when blokes were kidnapping and raping girls, and then, because they'd had sex, the girls would have to marry them.

"If I'd stayed in Georgia I would have been destined for an early marriage. I would have been a mother and housewife.

"Of course, bringing up a child is an absolutely amazing job - if you do it from choice.

"But when I came to the UK, I thanked my lucky stars to be living in a country with job opportunities, equality and freedom of speech.

"To me, feminism is about having the same choices as men. I'm sure if I'd been born in Britain, I wouldn't have been so single-minded about making my own living and delaying getting married.

"But because of the culture in Georgia, I rebelled against the whole housewife thing."

She declines to say whether she currently has a partner.

The last relationship about which she spoke publicly was with Luke Pritchard, Brighton-based singer with The Kooks.

They met at college, remained together for three years, then split amicably a couple of years ago, citing pressures of work.

Since, her name has been linked with lesbian photographer Lara Bloom, 27, whom she met last year in California during a promotional tour of the States.

I ask Katie about the friendship.

"I really try not to talk about my friends," she says, apologetic.

"They are all special, they are all stars in their own right and I love them specifically because they don't want to be famous by association with me.

"I made the mistake of talking about Luke and I kind of regret it. So since then.."

She trails off.

So is she gay?

"People can think whatever they like," she says evenly. "I like to keep some mystique around my public image. In a sense, the less you give the better."

Melua's detractors contend that she is anodyne. Once, the notoriously erratic Amy Winehouse called her music "s**t".

Melua's response is equable: "We'd never met when she made that comment, but we did afterwards and she was really nice to me.

"All I would say is: "'If you're going to be mean, do it to my face.'"

But the even-tempered Melua, of course, has had the last laugh.

Her star has ascended while Winehouse, wrapped up in her own drug problems, is in a downwards spiral.

"If what we read about Amy is true," Katie says cautiously, "I feel very sorry for her.

"My dad, being a doctor, has always told me horror stories about drugs and overdosing, so it makes me angry that people like Kate Moss and Pete Doherty are glamorised in the press.'

Has the unimpeachable Ms Melua ever succumbed to excess? She smiles.

"Everyone has lost control a little bit," she says.

"You know, just being so p****d you don't remember what you did the night before.

"Crazy parties. I'm not going to go into details, but I've done most of the things 23-year-olds do."

Melua has a talent for being ordinary. She is rarely recognised because her clothes are unassumingshe does not court attention and she deplores extravagance.

The last time I met her, two years ago - and despite her burgeoning wealth - she drove a battered Seat saloon and still lived with her parents, who had decamped from Belfast to a modest semi in Surrey, where her dad worked as a GP.

Since then, she and her parents have pooled their resources and moved, with her brother Zurab, 15, to a larger home in central London.

Now, however, she is moving into her own two-bedroom flat in Notting Hill, West London.

"I'm 23. I think it's time to fly the nest," she smiles.

She calls the flat an "indulgence".

So, too, is her Alfa Romeo car.

"It's nice to enjoy yourself once in a while, so I've just got it for a bit," she says, as if absolving herself from some unforgivable extravagance.

"Next year I'll swap it for something greener; an electric car, perhaps."

Her abhorrence of waste and conspicuous spending, predictably, go back to a past in which bread and petrol were rationed, baths were filled using buckets and pay cheques - even for heart surgeons - were both small and erratic.

She goes back to Georgia every year to see her family and wants to be buried in her homeland.

But she is sharply conscious of its grinding poverty. She knows her grandparents cannot survive on their pitiful joint pension of £11.50 a month.

"The only way they get by is because I help them out," she says.

"But that is the good bit about Georgia: families respect their elderly. It's up to the kids to look out for them."

Gran, meanwhile, has helpfully entertained the paparazzi back home in Georgia, supplying them with countless photos of the cute, infant Melua.

"I'm like, "Oh gra-a-n!" when she tells me," Katie winces.

The sharp contrast between her own considerable wealth and the penury of her Georgian relatives ensures she will never make the outrageous demands of a prima donna.

Two years ago, she and her family became British citizens.

But she has learned that the material comforts of her adopted home do not necessarily bring happiness.

"As a child I always assumed that everyone living here was happy.

"But I have learned that in wealthy, politically stable countries, people find something to worry about.

You don't think about your shrink, your hayfever, your headaches if you're fighting for survival in a war-torn country.'

So is she content? 'I'm pretty chilled out,' she says. 'Not much keeps me awake at night.'

• THE single Mary Pickford is out on November 26. The album Pictures is out now on the Dramatico label.

Singer exposes troubled star as two-faced

Katie Melua might look like the quiet type, but get her talking about Amy Winehouse and she won't shut up.

The singer says Amy is two-faced, after the troubled star called her music 's**t'.

'We'd never met when she made that comment, but we did afterwards and she was really nice to me,' Katie says. 'All I would say to her is, "If you are going to be mean, do it to my face".'

Even so, Katie, 23, has some compassion for the jazz diva because her life is in such a state.

'If what we read about Amy is true,' she tells The Daily Mail. 'I feel very sorry for her.'

And don't get Katie started on Kate Moss or Pete Doherty.

'My dad, being a doctor, has always told me the horror stories of drugs and overdosing,' she says. 'So it makes me angry that people like Kate Moss and Pete Doherty are glamorised in the press.'

SEE VIDEO of Amy Winehouse slating Katie Melua on Never Mind The Buzzcocks...

http://www.nowmagazine.co.uk/celeb_news/SEE_VIDEO_Katie_Melua_Amy_Winehouse_called_my_m...

2mary_live:

>Singer exposes troubled star as two-faced

Так Эймик ее музыку назвала дерьмовой, а не саму Катю. Может, как человек, Катя ей нравится.

2Primal Scream:

>2mary_live:
>>Singer exposes troubled star as two-faced
>Так Эймик ее музыку назвала дерьмовой, а не саму
>Катю. Может, как человек, Катя ей нравится.

может :)))
(бывает и наоборот, человек не нравится, а его музыка нравится)))

DESPITE being the best-selling female European artist in the world last year, Katie Melua is about as distant from the headline-hogging pop brats’ club as Amy Winehouse is from the Mickey Mouse Club.

In fact, in between interviews at a plush Johannesburg hotel during her promotional trip to SA last week, she was devouring an Ian McEwan novel — hardly the type of sedate behaviour one would expect from a 23-year-old singing sensation who has sold more than 3-million copies of her second album, Piece by Piece.

But, as Karl Anderson of Just Music, her South African record label, points out, Melua is “an absolute professional … she never moans and groans”.

Even when posing for a seemingly endless array of photographs with local media and industry groupies at a private meet-and-greet last week, and signing countless autographs, she obliged graciously and with a shy smile.

October saw the release of her third album, Pictures, which has already attained gold status in SA . Last week, she was presented with an award for clocking up combined album sales of more than 200000 in SA alone.

But multiplatinum success doesn’t seem to have gone to this petite brunette’s head. Sometimes it still takes her by surprise when people recognise her.

She tells of how she took some time out while promoting her new album in Cape Town to pet cheetahs and check out some penguins. “It was pissing with rain and I was huddled up, with my hair up, looking really horrible, when a woman came up to me and asked, ‘Aren’t you Katie Melua?’ ‘I suppose I am,’ I said.”

On a previous occasion, a fan wandered backstage at one of her shows and nonchalantly asked her if she knew where he could find Katie Melua.

“I’ve come to the realisation that anyone’s famous persona is not (reflective of them as) a real person — and that when fans meet their idol, they’re often disappointed as this image exists in their head, fuelled by that public persona.”

She has the same friends as she did pre-fame, regards her band as a family, and has a healthily jaded view of the music industry. Part of this down-to-earth approach can be attributed to her upbringing in her native Georgia, a traditional society where her choice of career may have been more limited had she not moved to England with her family as a teenager.

Coming from that background (and being a self-confessed “geek” at school), she knows the value of hard work, and has come to appreciate her job and education more than many of her western-raised counterparts may.

Part of that “job” is fulfilling certain obligations to the public, in addition to her recording and touring commitments. She is mindful that “it’s not all about me”, and points out that since her success is partly due to team effort, her diligent attitude to her work is also out of respect for them.

“I feel so lucky,” she says. “It’s such a small price to pay if it means I get to do something I really love.”

So why hasn’t she succumbed to the temptations of fame, like Winehouse, Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan and company? “I know, it’s very un-rock ’n roll,” she sighs.

“I have this annoying nice-girl image — I suppose I should be more of a bitch.”

If she were a bitch, it’s doubtful she could make the languorous, dreamy music that’s found favour across the globe.

Pictures, her third release, was crafted along a cinematic theme, touching on everything from MGM classics to spaghetti westerns. Melua’s music style fits snugly with the film concept, as she sings about screen legends such as Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks.

Having written or co-written half of the 12 tracks on the album, Melua continues to collaborate with manager and songwriting genius Mike Batt, who helped steer her to fame.

For her next album, she’ll stick with Batt and his label Dramatico, but he is likely to take a step back in the writing process, enabling her to further explore her creative horizons. “I hope that I’m growing in confidence in my writing,” she says. “Mike wrote most of my hits, and more people know his songs than mine. I think his songs have more commercial appeal, while mine have more indie appeal.”

There is no “typical” Katie Melua fan, she says, and for that reason she is reluctant to record a song with the term “audience pleaser” uppermost in her mind. “You can’t please everyone, so it’s best to please yourself.”

Just as her fans range in age from the young to the more mature, Melua has embraced technology but is an old-fashioned girl at heart.

“You kind of have to embrace the digital age, because it’s the way music is being accessed these days,” she says, reflecting on the fact that Pictures has topped the iTunes charts in several countries.

“But it would be a shame if record sales totally disappeared. Downloaded music has the subtle effect of being seen as less valuable, as it’s not a packaged thing. The fact that it’s as easy as a click away doesn’t seem as special. I’d be a bit gutted if it replaced CD sales. Having said that, I’m obsessed with iTunes!”

Despite this, and the fact that she blogs regularly, “I’m definitely a traditionalist. I love old things. My flat is filled with antiques — old books, second-hand clothes.”

Unlike her American counterpart Norah Jones, whose laid-back melodies hold similar appeal, Melua has no plans to try her hand in front of the cameras, despite the theme of her latest album.

“I’ll write music for movies, but I have no reason to think I can act,” she says.

After “finishing this chapter”, she says she’d love to make a “really groundbreaking album that challenges in the way you listen to it, that’s an entertainment unit in itself — an extended version of a concept album”.

The first half of next year will probably see a world tour, which will include dates in SA that are yet to be finalised. No doubt it will also see this singer-songwriter soar to even greater heights, with the aid of her ingrained work ethic and natural ability.

Еще в июле закаказал в Ozon диск Melua,Katie - Concert Under The Sea: The Documentary Film,но до сих пор не получил. Кто знает-он вообще-то вышел?

2VASILY:

>Еще в июле закаказал в Ozon диск Melua,Katie
>- Concert Under The Sea: The Documentary Film,но
>до сих пор не получил. Кто знает-он вообще-то вышел?

Katie Melua: Concert Under the Sea (2007)
DVD Release Date: June 26, 2007


Katie Melua: Concert Under The Sea - The Documentary Film was shot in and off the coast of Norway, and tells the story of Katie setting the Guinness World Record for the deepest underwater concert ever performed, 303 metres below the sea. Invited by Statoil, the gas drilling company, to celebrate their 10th anniversary on the biggest man-made structure ever moved on Earth, Katie (after checking their environmental record) agreed to perform on the North Sea floor at the foot of a leg of the enormous drilling platform.

The story of Katie and her band's rigorous safety training, and the realisation of the dream of the gas platform manager who conceived the whole crazy idea, is the subject of this fascinating film. Towards the end of the film we witness some of the concert itself.

The Extras:

1. ‘It's Only Pain’ Promo Video.

2. 'Shy Boy' Promo Video

3. Stills by Jo de Banzie (during 'It's Only Pain video shoot')

4. Katie Interview: The Gig On The Rig

5. Katie Interview: Singing In The Rain

Полная дискография с обложками на официальном сайте Katie:
http://www.katiemelua.com/music.html

О Кэти Мелуа я впервые узнал полтора года назад, когда перебирал диски в лондонском музыкальном магазине HMV - вот тут-то она и зазвучала из динамиков под потолком. Я кинулся к продавцам и стал допытываться, кто это сейчас поет. И тут же купил этот диск ("Piece by piece"). А в следующий свой приезд полгода спустя приобрел новый, "Call off the search". Обалденная певица!

2yellow submarine:
>Обалденная певица!

мне тоже очень-очень нравится :)