Martika
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| Martika | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Marta Marrero |
| Born | May 18, 1969 |
| Origin | Whittier, California, United States |
| Occupation(s) | Singer, songwriter, record producer, Actress |
| Years active | 1980 ─ present (singer) |
| Label(s) | Sony, CBS Records, Cbs, Dunda Chief Records |
| Website | Official Website |
Marta Marrero (born May 18, 1969), better known as Martika, is an American pop singer and actress of Cuban ancestry.
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[edit] Biography and career
Born in Whittier, California, U.S., Marrero entered mainstream show business as one of the orphan girls (an uncredited role) in the 1982 motion picture Annie. This led to her being cast as “Gloria” on the Disney Channel kids show Kids Incorporated 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 and solo artist Fergie also had singing parts in the video.
Following her role in Kids Incorporated and Be Somebody, Martika was quickly snagged by CBS Records as a potential Madonna-like pop star. Her first album, 1988's Martika, spawned the anti-drug abuse song “Toy Soldiers”, which became a #1 U.S. Top 40 single. “More Than You Know” (#18) and “I Feel The Earth Move” (a remake of Carole King’s Tapestry album classic; #25) were also U.S. Top 40 hits. Her first solo release was, however, 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.
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. "Eyes are Sensitive to the Light" was re-recorded by Deborah Blando, an "Italian-Brazilian-diva" , and by Elba Ramalho for her first album "A Different Story".
In 1991, she was approached by Prince and became one of the so-called “Prince Protégées.” Her second album, Martika's Kitchen, was an American flop (except for the minor radio favorite “Love…Thy Will Be Done,” her second and final U.S. Top 10 single, which is almost a modern 'spiritual' number, and the title track). However, the album was again a huge success abroad, though on a lesser scale than her debut, spawning hits with the songs “Coloured Kisses” and “Temptation.” However, it faded quickly from the charts and went out of print.
Martika attempted to revitalize her acting career by playing lounge singer/undercover cop Dahlia Mendez on the early 1990s cop show Wiseguy, but the role was a temporary one and she eventually 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. In 1991, she contributed one song, "Temptation", to Patti LaBelle's album Burnin' (as songwriter).
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 martika.net in 2001, a web site for her fans, and released a remix of a newly self-recorded song called "The Journey." She also recorded a track titled “Monday,” as part of a direction she was heading for a new solo album the web site promised was on its way. However, “The Journey” garnered only 5,000 hits as a free download on mp3.com’s music service. Eventually her web site was shut down, and Martika seemingly faded once again into show business 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, she and Mozart released Oppera’s debut album Violince in 2004. That same year, Eminem used a sample of her “Toy Soldiers” song for “Like Toy Soldiers”, a track on his album Encore, which entered the UK Singles chart at No. 1. In response, Martika’s UK Greatest Hits album was repackaged with its 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 biography was added to the album insert reflecting the new Eminem sample, though it asserted that she had not released any albums since Martika's Kitchen.
Oppera released a self-titled second album in 2005. Martika promoted Oppera's album release with a Borders book-store tour.
[edit] Discography
[edit] Singles
| Year | Title | Album | UK | US | NL | Australia |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1988 | “More Than You Know” | Martika | 15 | 18 | - | 32 |
| 1989 | “Toy Soldiers” | Martika | 5 | 1 | 1 | 5 |
| 1989 | “I Feel the Earth Move” | Martika | 7 | 25 | 17 | 2 |
| 1990 | “Water” | Martika | 59 | - | - | 98 |
| 1991 | “Love... Thy Will Be Done” | Martika's Kitchen | 9 | 10 | 19 | 1 |
| 1991 | “Martika's Kitchen” | Martika's Kitchen | 17 | 92 | 14 | 29 |
| 1992 | “Coloured Kisses” | Martika's Kitchen | 41 | - | - | 39 |
