Singing pretty on our #AOTW segment today is the British singer-songwriter Anne-Marie. She has been featured on several hit singles till date, including Clean Bandit’s “Rockabye” Friends”, “Alarm” and “Ciao Adios” Anne-Marie was once a karate champion. She won two gold medals at the world championship for karate at 12 even though she spent her early years struggling to become a pop singer. “I always knew that I wanted to sing, I just never knew it would be possible to be an artiste”, she said.
It’s exciting seeing her living her dreams as an artiste too today since her career took off with the collaborative hit single Rockabye with Clean Bandit in 2016. Rockabye was a global hit! Clean Bandit had e-mailed it to her while she was away at a festival and as soon as she heard it, she flew back and recorded it.
Yeah! She never knew how big it would be. Did she? The 27-year-old Essex native Anne-Marie was born Anne-Marie Rose Nicholson on 7th April 1990 (29). She was raised in East Tilbury in Essex. She attended Palmer’s College in Thurrock as a teenager.
In 2013, Anne-Marie released a solo demo for the Rocket Records called “Summer Girl”. Her solo career was curtailed in order for her to develop herself as an artist. She then spent the next two years touring with Will Heard and Dizzee Rascal and also appeared on a number of songs from their album ‘We the Generation’.
In June, 2015, Anne-Marie released her debut EP titled ‘Karate’ through new label Major Tom. What happened after that?
Gemini was such a massive hit. It is a follow-up single from the Karate EP and one of the two singles released from the EP (Karate and Gemini) in 2015 which led to Anne-Marie making her first solo live performances before releasing “Do It Right” later in November of the same year. The song was originally intended to appear on Anne-Marie’s debut full-length album which at the time, had the working title of Breathing Fire. In May 2016, Anne-Marie released “Alarm”, the first single from her debut album – Speak Your Mind.
Later in October 2016, Anne-Marie was confirmed to play at the thirty-first edition of Eurosonic Noorderslag in Netherlands the same month, Clean Bandit released their song “Rockabye”, with Anne-Marie as main vocalist and featuring Jamaican rapper Sean Paul. In March 2017, Anne-Marie released another single titled “Ciao Adios” which became a top 10 hit in the UK. Then a collaboration on a song titled Either Way as well as two other singles: “Heavy” in September and “Then” in December of 2017 respectively.
She released two fantastic songs in 2018: one before the other after her debut album. “2002”Or “Rewrite the Stars”?
“Rockabye” the song was a bomb! certified multi-platinum across most of Europe, North America, and Oceania.
Starting 2018, Anne-Marie collaborated with Marshmello on “Friends” her first top five UK hit as a lead artist. It was released on 9 February
In April 2018, finally, Anne-Marie released her debut studio album, Speak Your Mind! Drum roll!!!!!!!! The album peaked at number three on the UK Albums Chart
“2002” released on 20th April was in response to constant urging by Ed Sheeran, the co-creator of the song. Anne-Marie and James Arthur recorded “Rewrite the Stars” from The Greatest Showman for the re-recording of its soundtrack, The Greatest Showman: Reimagined and was released in November 2018
On why she has chosen to be called her name instead of a stage name: We were thinking of choosing a completely different name at first but decided that Anne-Marie was kinda unique and it was me.I didn’t want to have a different persona – I am the same on and off stage.
AWARDS & NOMINATIONS
She has been nominated for four awards at the 2019 Brit Awards, including Best British Female Solo Artis
Discography: Speak Your Mind (2018)
Tours: Headlining act, Anne-Marie Live (2016), 2018 UK and European Tour (2018), Speak Your Mind Tour (2018–2019)
Supporting: (Europe leg) (2017–18)
My sweetheart