Martika
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Marta Marrero (born May 18, 1969 in Whittier, California, USA), better known as Martika, is a Cuban-American teen pop singer and actress.
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[edit] Biography and career
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. At around the same time, Martika and many fellow cast members from Kids Incorporated starred in the musical numbers from the Mr. T motivational video “Be Somebody or Be Somebody’s Fool,” which also aired in 1984. Shanice as well as future Black Eyed Peas member Stacy Ferguson also had singing parts in the video.
Marrero also had a role in the 1982 motion picture Annie as one of the orphan girls.
Following her role in Kids Incorporated and “Be Somebody,” Martika 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 larger success abroad. She had foreign hits with “Water,” “More Than You Know,” “I Feel the Earth Move” and “Alibis.” “More Than You Know” and “I Feel The Earth Move” (a remake of Carole King’s Tapestry album classic) were also U.S. Top 40 hits (#18 and #25, respectively). 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,” her second and final U.S. Top 10 single, and the title track). However, the album was again a huge success abroad, though on a lesser scale, spawning 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 Arachnophobia. 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 Dahlia Mendez on the early 1990s cop show Wiseguy, 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.
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. She recorded as well a track titled “Monday,” as part of a direction she was heading for a new solo album the website promised was on its way. “The Journey,” however, garnered only 5,000 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 her musician husband, 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. Martika promoted Oppera's album release with a Barnes & Noble's tour. Oppera is currently working on its third release which should see a 2007 release and is apparently going to have a dancier sound.
[edit] Discography
For full discography look at Martika discography.
[edit] Singles
| Year | Title | Album | UK | US |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1989 | “More Than You Know” | Martika | 15 | 18 |
| 1989 | “Toy Soldiers” | Martika | 5 | 1 |
| 1990 | “I Feel the Earth Move” | Martika | 7 | 25 |
| 1990 | “Water” | Martika | 59 | - |
| 1991 | “Love... Thy Will Be Done” | Martika's Kitchen | 9 | 10 |
| 1991 | “Martika's Kitchen” | Martika's Kitchen | 17 | 93 |
| 1992 | “Coloured Kisses” | Martika's Kitchen | 41 | - |
[edit] Trivia
Martika's first solo release was a song called "WE ARE MUSIC" recorded for use in Japan to promote sony cassette tapes. The song was only released in Japan on 12", 7" and CD formats.
