Paulini Curuenavuli
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 |
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| Paulini | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Pauline Curuenavuli |
| Born | October 15, 1982 |
| Origin | Fiji |
| Genre(s) | Pop Urban R&B |
| Occupation(s) | Singer-songwriter |
| Instrument(s) | Singing |
| Years active | 2003 - present |
| Label(s) | Sony-BMG (2004–present) |
| Associated acts | Young Divas |
| Website | Official Website |
Paulini Curuenavuli (born Pauline Curuenavuli on 15 October 1982) is an Australian pop and R&B singer, who is best known for coming fourth in the first series of Australian Idol. She has released two albums and five singles over her solo career including the number one smash hit "Angel Eyes". Here debut album "One Determined Heart" was a platinum selling album and was one of that year's most successful releases. She has also been nominated for numerous ARIA Awards and Urban Music Awards. She is also a member of the multiple platinum selling group Young Divas.
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[edit] Biography
Paulini was born in Fiji and moved to Australia in 1986 with her family at the age of four. Paulini has two sisters, Sereima Curuenavuli and Litia Curuenavuli, who are also singers. Her family settled in the south-west of Sydney where she went to school and regularly attended church. She began singing at the age of six with her church gospel choir.
When Paulini was eight years of age, her brother, Khal, was shot in the chest and died during a robbery. Paulini was very close to her brother and sang "Fields of Gold" on Australian Idol in his memory.[1]
In 1997, Paulini was spotted as a promising talent by her high school, Bankstown Girls High School, and was put into the New South Wales Talent Development Program. This led to her entering and winning the televised talent contest "Starstruck" at the age of 16. Her song "When You Believe" is included on the CD of the show. She was also a participant in the live Schools Spectacular concerts which are also televised on the ABC. At age 17 she performed Barbra Streisand's "Somewhere" at the 2000 Schools Spectacular and in 2001's Schools Spectacular she sang "Rising Star" and Handel's "Hallelujah" Chorus. Also in year 2000 she performed at Bankstown's Millennium Buzz, which was held over four nights at the Dunc Gray Veledrome in the local area. On every night Paulini performed her solo "When You Believe" and sang many other songs.
Curuenavali formed a band in 2001 called MIXX and also started session singing and cutting demos as a solo artist. Her two sisters are also members of MIXX. MIXX performed regular gigs around Sydney and toured Australia and Fiji in 2002. Paulini still performs with MIXX for special events.
Paulini was invited to open the South Pacific Games in Fiji in 2003 where she performed and recorded the South Pacific Games anthem ("Many Rhythms, One Love") for the Games Official Album: "The Pacific At Its Best" King Music website.
[edit] Australian Idol 2003
Paulini auditioned for and was a contestant in the first series of Australian Idol in 2003 where she reached the final four. Paulini is one of the most memorable contestants on the show and was greatly respected by the judges and the Australian public for her grace and humility.
She covered many songs on the show from the likes of Barbra Streisand to Destiny's Child. In the first three or four weeks of the finals stage of the competition she was considered a favourite to win the title over hot competition from Guy Sebastian and Cosima de Vito. In the Final 6 after a great performance of an Aretha Franklin classic she was placed in the bottom three much to the shock of viewers around Australia. That night she was saved from elimination, but judge, Mark Holden made a plea to viewers to please vote for their favourite performers to avoid losing huge talent such as Paulini. It was at this stage of the competition the public started to compare Paulini to Cosima because they were the only females left in the competition. In polls the pair were basically inseparable and neither of them were considered better than the other.
In the Final 5 Paulini was targeted by the judges as having bad taste and was told to wear this particular gold dress she needed to "shed a few kilos". Paulini was apparently deeply hurt, but after surviving another week in the competition she picked up her confidence once more.
The next week in the Final 4 Paulini was eliminated after two very good Big Band performances. Her elimination from the program was voted as the most surprising vote by the public just after Ricki-Lee Coulter's elimination in Season 2. In recent years Paulini was ranked the seventh highest selling Idol artist in terms of her solo career, and also the highest selling artist within the Young Divas.
Paulini's Australian Idol song list:
- Sydney Audition - "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" (Marvin Gaye & Tammy Terrell)
- Semi Final Group 5 - "Somewhere" (Barbra Streisand)
- Final 12 (70's) - "Don't Leave Me This Way" (Thelma Houston)
- Final 10 (#1's) - "Eternal Flame" (The Bangles)
- Final 8 (Aussie Hits) - "Chains" (Tina Arena)
- Final 6 (80's) - "Freeway of Love" (Aretha Franklin) BOTTOM 3
- Up, Close & Personal - "Fields of Gold" (Sting)
- Final 5 (R&B/Soul) - "Unbreak My Heart" (Toni Braxton) & "Survivor" (Destiny's Child)
- Final 4 (Big Band) - "At Last (Etta James) & "Almost Like Being In Love" (Natalie Cole) ELIMINATED
Paulini performed "Freeway of Love", "The Voice Within", "Crazy In Love" and "Chains" during the Australian Idol Tour of 2003.
Paulini was offered several recording contracts after Australian Idol, she eventually accepted a four-album deal with Sony BMG Music.
[edit] Post-Australian Idol Career
[edit] 2003-2004: One Determined Heart
Paulini was signed to Sony Music in 2004 and released her debut album, One Determined Heart, soon after. The album was produced by Audius Mtawarira, who had previously co-written Delta Goodrem's Australian #1 hit "Born To Try". The album included two original tracks, "One Determined Heart" and We Can Try as well as various covers including TLC's hit "Waterfalls" and The Thymes' 1960's hit "Trustmaker".
The first single off the album was Angel Eyes a cover of the 1988 hit song by Canadian blues musician Jeff Healey which debuted at #2 on the ARIA Australian singles charts on 11 July 2004. It initially debuted at #1 until ARIA discovered that a Sydney DJ had bought 100 copies in one transaction, disqualifying 99 unit sales and bumping her out of the top spot. But a week later the song officially reached #1 on 18 July 2004 and stayed in the top 10 for over 3 months. Angel Eyes was the 4th Best Selling Single of 2004.
Paulini's first album, One Determined Heart debuted at #1 on 2 August following its release in late July 2004 and remained in the top 10 for several weeks earning a Platinum certification.
Angel Eyes was nominated for an ARIA Award for Highest Selling Single in 2004. She was a hot favourite to win the accolade but fellow Idol contestant Guy took home the award.
The second single released was We Can Try, an original blues track, which debuted at No. 30 in the Aria Singles Chart and No. 9 in the ARIA Urban Top 40 Singles chart. Angel Eyes and her album were also still in the charts at this time.
in 2004, Paulini recorded a Christmas EP entitled, Amazing Grace: Songs for Christmas, which included a performance of "People Get Ready", featuring Human Nature. The EP was released in November of 2004, and started climbing the charts but only peaked at #70 on the ARIA charts. She also released a fairly unsuccessful video single from the album entitled "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas". The album was a Top 10 hit in the Urban Charts and a Top 5 hit in the Australasian Charts.
[edit] 2006-2007: Superwoman and Young Divas
Paulini recorded her second album, Superwoman, in London, the US, Spain and Australia in late 2004 but it took eighteen months for Sony BMG to release the album to the public.
In January 2006, Paulini released her third single, "Rough Day", which was the first single taken from the album, Superwoman The CD included her first self-penned track ("Last Love") on the B side. "Rough Day" debuted at number three on the ARIA Dance Chart and number twenty-six in the Singles Chart.
Her self-penned track "So Over You" was the second single taken from her album and was released in May 2006. It was widely praised but only peaked at number forty-nine in the ARIA singles chart, spending just thirteen weeks in the top one hundred. It fared better in the Urban Singles Chart where it reached number thirteen and stayed in the top forty for three months.
Superwoman was finally released on August 5, 2006, and included three tracks written by Paulini marking her debut as a song-writer. Paulini had more creative control over this album than her debut album and was responsible for all vocal arrangements.
The release of Superwoman was surrounded in controversy, having suffered numerous delays and many false official release announcements. This caused much (misguided) media speculation that Sony-BMG planned to drop her from the label and were not intending to release the album.
Though of far better production quality than her platinum debut album, One Determined Heart, Superwoman failed to make any impact on the ARIA charts, although it was more successful in the rival Brazin charts and in the ARIA Urban charts.
The third single release was "I Believe". A video had been shot for the song, and aired several times on television video hit programs. Also a CD of 2 Club mixes of the track had a limited release to the music industry and was aired on radio and played in clubs, but the track was released only to promote the album.
Paulini and her single "Rough Day" received nominations for: Best Single, Best New Talent, Best Female Talent and Best Video in the Australian and New Zealand Urban Music Awards.
Paulini's live performance of "Rough Day" was also included on the best-selling "Sunrise Live: Concert Series" CD.
In early 2006 Sony BMG asked Paulini to be part of an all-girl band concept which was to include previous Australian Idol contestants Emily Williams, Ricki-Lee Coulter and Kate DeAraugo. Initially the concept was based around a one-off single and concert tour to promote all four artists. The band, known as the Young Divas, had a successful debut release with their chart-topping single "This Time I Know It's For Real". The song spent almost a year in the charts and peaked at No. 2 and was certified as Platinum selling. They also toured to sell-out concerts around Australia for a three week engagement. The concert ended up going for a further three months causing Coulter to postpone her wedding.
On November 11, following the success of the Young Divas first single, the band released a cover version of Lonnie Gordon's track "Happenin' All over Again" as a second single. The song debuted in the charts at number twelve and peaked at number nine. It reached Gold status. Their self-titled album was released on November 18, and charted at number four in Australia and accrediting double platinum by ARIA. A third single "Searchin" was released, but did not perform as well on the charts as the other singles. It peaked at No. 40. This was caused because of little promotion (at the time the Young Divas were seeking a new member of the group as Ricki-Lee Coulter had made a quick departure). Jessica Mauboy was announced the replacement in September 2007.
Although of an unsuccessful third single Sony BMG were very impressed with the Young Divas work over the 2006/2007 period and renewed their contract and gave the nod for plans of a second album early 2007. Australian Idol also stated that the Young Divas had one of the most successful debut albums out of their past Idol contestants.
[edit] 2007: New Attitude
On 26 September 2007, Curuenavuli appeared alongside her bandmates on the top 12 night of the fifth season of Australian Idol. It was during this performance that season four runner-up Jessica Mauboy was revealed as the new Young Diva, replacing Ricki-Lee Coulter. The group performed "When You Believe" which was originally sung by Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston for the fortieth anniversary of Channel 7's Telethon Western Australia.
On 9 October, they appeared on an Australian Idol special named Doing It For the Kids, and revealed that the name of their second album would be New Attitude. On 22 October they appeared on Australian Idol season five for a third time, where they performed their new single Turn Me Loose along with New Zealand rapper Savage, who is featured on the track. The single was officially released on November 17, 2007 and has so far peaked at #15. The Divas' second studio album was released on 26th November, peaked at #10 and was certified gold in its debut week on the charts.
On March 28, 2008, the Young Divas' record label, Sony BMG announced in The Daily Telegraph that due to the underperformance of "Turn Me Loose", no second single would be released from New Attitude. However, it was also stated that the group were not being dropped from the record label's line-up of artists.[2]
[edit] Discography
The following article is a complete discography of every album and single released by Australian pop/urban/R&B music artist Paulini Curuenavuli.
[edit] Albums
| Album information |
|---|
One Determined Heart
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Amazing Grace: Songs for Christmas
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Superwoman
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[edit] Singles
| Year | Song | Australia | New Zealand | Album |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2004 | "Angel Eyes" | 1 | 34 | One Determined Heart |
| "We Can Try" | 30 | — | ||
| 2006 | "Rough Day" | 26 | — | Superwoman |
| "So Over You" | 49 | — | ||
| "I Believe" | — | — |
[edit] Other charted songs
| Year | Song | Australia | Album |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2003 | "Rise Up" (with Australian Idol Top 12) |
1 | Australian Idol: The Final 12 - Cast Album |
[edit] Awards and recognition
| Year | Award-giving Body | Award | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2005 | ARIA No. 1 Chart Awards | ARIA No 1 Album (One Determined Heart) | Won |
| 2004 | ARIA No. 1 Chart Awards | ARIA No. 1 Single (Angel Eyes) | Won |
| 2004 | ARIA Award | Highest Selling Single (Angel Eyes) | Nominated |
| 2006 | Australian/NZ Urban Music Awards | Best Female Artist | Nominated |
| 2007 | rhino's Urban Music Awards | Best Female Artist | Nominated |
| 2007 | rhino's Urban Music Awards | Best R&B Album for 'Superwoman' | Nominated |
[edit] References
- ^ Paulini Online
- ^ http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,23442430-5012327,00.html
- ^ "ARIA CHARTS - AUSTRALIAN CHARTS: ALBUMS - 08/08/2004". Australian-charts.com. Retrieved May 11, 2008.
- ^ "ARIA Charts - Accreditations - 2004 Albums". ARIA Charts. Retrieved May 11, 2008.
- ^ "ARIA Report: Issue 858 - August 14 2006". ARIA Charts. Retrieved October 11, 2007.
[edit] External links
- Paulini's Official Site
- Paulini's Myspace
- It Takes Two official website
- Paulini's Fan site
- Interview Site
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