There's no doubt about it: we're talking about Sandra who has had 14 consecutive hits in only five years time. But there's more: Sandra, a German pop artist, rocked the charts of 15 countries, soared to the top and thus made pop music made in Germany presentable all over the world. She made the impossible possible: she is not only Germany's most successful pop artist but also Germany's no. 1 pop export.
Her debut single Maria Magdalena decisively influenced this development; having been the insider club hit for months it finally cast off its camouflage mac in 1985 and became the international summer hit. After this pulsating rhythm had conquered the countries around the Mediterranean it spread across the Continent and even found passionate fans in cool Scandinavia. Maria Magdalena achieved a quadruple platinum status in Sweden alone and thus became Sweden's biggest seller ever - Sandra outsold the Beatles and their legendary national act ABBA with this hit.
This phenomenon was no flash in the pan, on the contrary - numerous hits helped to build up Sandra's career: In The Heat Of The Night, Little Girl, Innocent Love, Stop For A Minute, Heaven Can Wait, Secret Land, We'll Be Together to name only a few. The list of her albums is rather short as opposed to the long list of her hit singles but nonetheless just as significant: her 1985 debut album The Long Play which was followed by her 1986 album Mirrors and the 1987 single compilation Ten On One all achieved gold or respectively platinum status just as the with finesse stylized journey Into A Secret Land did - all of the above does not only apply to Germany but also to Austria, Switzerland, France, Scandinavia...
Sandra's career which has developed nicely in those five years which have passed since Maria Magdalena is inseparably connected with the name of the one man who has determined this typical "Sandra sound" with his unerring antenna for instrumentation, arrangements and production which often is far ahead of the zeitgeist: Michael Cretu, Sandra's spouse. Their co-operation on both a private and professional basis - this ideal interaction of creative harmony and directive feeling - goes back to 1982 when Sandra, who was born in Saarbrücken on May 18th, 1962, first met the sound specialist from Bucharest in a Frankfurt-based recording studio. Sandra then was the lead vocalist of the German girlie band "Arabesque" (a favourite in all clubs ever since 1978); especially the Japanese teens loved their music.
Her Japanese fans remained loyal after she launched her solo career and celebrated her with tempestuous attentiveness as at the Tokyo Music Festival in 1986 when she got standing ovations at the legendary Budokan stadium and stole all other artists the show.
In 1986 her second single In The Heat Of The Night proved that the streak of success she had been enjoying so far was apt to continue. Live appearances all over the world were to reward her fans for their support and thus a six week promotion tour led Sandra to exotic places like Peru, Venezuela, Brazil, Mexico and to Japan, of course.
Although Sandra is enormously successful at home and abroad she experienced something completely new when she was enthusiastically celebrated as she gave five guest performances for a total of 250.000 fans in Moscow at the end of August last year.
The next few weeks will keep Sandra busy once again; this is due to the release of her new album Paintings In Yellow; here Sandra proceeds with her familiar liveliness and naturalness to create paintings just by singing with that fawning, velvety voice of hers.
Her current single Hiroshima - an excellent remake of the old Wishful Thinking hit - allows us to glimpse at this album, which is a true gallery of art. Songs like Hiroshima, the beautiful ballad One More Night, the thrilling dancefloor track Life Is A Big Insanity, The Skin I'm In and others are the resounding paintings of a very impressive exhibition which are artfully combined in the musical trip The Journey. Paintings In Yellow once again shows off the subtlety and the elegance of style with which the singer and her producer created these songs full of feeling, soul and sound, which not only compare to international pop music but also set new standards. Sandra's emotional singing, the high-tech sound created by sound specialist Michael Cretu with ultra modern equipment like digital keyboards and drum computers, arrangements with disco beats and melodics are guarantors for successful pop music. The new "Oeuvre" was recorded in Ibiza where Michael and Sandra just recently moved to and where Michael has set up his new studio. But soon enough Sandra will have to leave her sunny island: she will launch her extensive European tour in September and she'll be sure to see all of her fans then.