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Fiona Russell Powell | |
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Also known as | Eden, Cooper O'Kelly (as poet) |
Born | 2 April 1962 |
Origin | England, United Kingdom |
Genres | Pop |
Occupation(s) | Musician, journalist |
Instrument(s) | Back-up vocals |
Years active | August 1984 – December 1985 as musician; 1982–present as journalist and writer |
Labels | Mercury Records |
Fiona Russell Powell (born 2 April 1962)[ citation needed ] is a British journalist. She is best known for her series of interviews throughout the 1980s in The Face magazine. For a brief period in the mid-1980s, she performed as a member of pop group ABC in videos and onstage to support their cartoon-synth album How to Be a ... Zillionaire! (1985). She was credited originally as "Fiona" in early recordings of material for this album, [1] but eventually performed under the stage name "Eden".
Growing up in Dore, Sheffield, she had known ABC from their early days as an electronic three-piece called Vice Versa. [2]
In 1982, aged 20, she began writing for The Face [3] [4] as a features writer, concentrating mostly on music and became known for her irreverent mickey-taking interviews with leading pop stars of the day.
After the success of ABC's debut album The Lexicon of Love and the disappointing reception to their follow up Beauty Stab , ABC's Martin Fry and Mark White decided they wanted a completely new image for ABC. To that end, they asked Powell to join the band as well as American David Yarritu.
Neither Powell nor Yarritu were allowed to contribute musically. When Powell admitted she couldn't play any instruments, ABC frontman Martin Fry replied "It doesn't matter. You can pretend. We want you because you've got a great look". [2] Vocals attributed to Powell as Eden on the album How to Be a Zillionaire were not performed by her either – for example, in the song "A to Z", the words "Hi, I'm Eden, and I want you to kiss my snatch" was actually Martin Fry's voice sped up and was recorded entirely without Powell's knowledge. [5]
Inflatable instruments were made for the band with the aim to be as luridly bright and "cartoony" as possible. Eden even wore a dildo belt she made on The Tube , the 1980s Channel 4 live music show, which was a belt covered in "ladyfingers" – very small white dildoes – to look like a bullet belt. [6] [7] The new look ABC went over well enough; in the UK and the US How to Be a Zillionaire charted in the top 30, [8] [9] while "Be Near Me" was the highest-charting track off the album at No. 26 in the UK [8] and in the top ten on the US Billboard Hot 100. [10]
Powell has written for Punch , [11] The Face, i-D , [12] Daily Express , [13] Time Out [14] and New Humanist , [15] among others.
Fiona Apple McAfee-Maggart is an American singer-songwriter. She released five albums from 1996 to 2020, all of which reached the top 20 on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart. Apple has received numerous awards and nominations, including three Grammy Awards, two MTV Video Music Awards, and a Billboard Music Award.
ABC is an English pop band that originated in Sheffield in 1980, evolving from the earlier ensemble Vice Versa. The band's classic formation featured Martin Fry as the lead vocalist, Mark White on guitar and keyboards, Stephen Singleton playing the saxophone, and David Palmer behind the drums.
The Lexicon of Love is the debut studio album by the English pop band ABC. Released by Neutron Records on 21 June 1982, it entered the UK Albums Chart at number one, also topping the New Zealand and Finnish charts. Certified gold in the US, it went platinum in the UK where four singles reached the top 20; "Tears Are Not Enough", "Poison Arrow", "The Look of Love" and "All of My Heart", which Pitchfork ranked number one on their "Now That's What I Call New Pop!" list.
The Kick Inside is the debut studio album by English singer-songwriter Kate Bush. Released on 17 February 1978 by EMI Records, it includes her UK No. 1 hit, "Wuthering Heights". The album peaked at No. 3 on the UK Albums Chart and has been certified Platinum by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI). Several progressive rock musicians were involved in the album including Duncan Mackay, Ian Bairnson, David Paton, Andrew Powell, and Stuart Elliott of the Alan Parsons Project and David Gilmour of Pink Floyd.
Martin David Fry is an English singer, songwriter, composer, musician, and record producer.
Adventures in Modern Recording is the second and most recent studio album by English new wave group the Buggles, released in November 1981 by Carrere Records. Although the Buggles began as a duo of Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes, the album ended up as mostly Horn's solo effort, as Downes left to join the English rock band Asia on the day recording was originally scheduled to begin. It contains nine tracks, including a version of a track from the Yes album Drama (1980), recorded during Horn and Downes' short initial tenure with the band. Originally named "Into the Lens", the Buggles rendition is titled "I Am a Camera". A stylistically and sonically varied progressive electronic album, Adventures in Modern Recording depicts Horn perfecting his skill as producer and was described by journalists as a document for how he would produce his later works. It was one of the earliest albums to use the Fairlight CMI, one of the first digital sampling synthesizers.
Record Mirror was a British weekly music newspaper between 1954 and 1991 for pop fans and record collectors. Launched two years after the NME, it never attained the circulation of its rival. The first UK album chart was published in Record Mirror in 1956, and during the 1980s it was the only consumer music paper to carry the official UK singles and UK albums charts used by the BBC for Radio 1 and Top of the Pops, as well as the US Billboard charts.
How to Be a ... Zillionaire! is the third studio album by English pop band ABC. It was originally released in October 1985, on the labels Neutron, Mercury and Vertigo. The album peaked at No. 28 on the UK Albums Chart and at No. 30 on the Billboard 200. Four singles were released from the album, "(How to Be A) Millionaire", "Be Near Me", "Vanity Kills", and the fourth was "Ocean Blue",. It is the group's only album to feature founder members Martin Fry and Mark White flanked by new members Eden and David Yarritu, the latter two credited merely as "performers" with effectively no or limited musical contribution to the album. The four-piece was also presented in a cartoon form for the album's artwork and promotional videos, and wore outrageous costumes and played false instruments for "live" promotional performances.
Look of Love: The Very Best of ABC is a compilation album by English synth-pop band ABC, release on November 6, 2001. Although essentially a reissue of greatest hits package Absolutely, the album featured two new songs by Fry titled "Peace and Tranquility" and "Blame". A companion DVD, along with a bonus disc of remixes was also released.
Long Road Out of Eden is the seventh studio album by American rock band the Eagles, released in 2007 on Lost Highway Records as their first ever double album. Nearly six years in production, it is the band's first studio album since 1979's The Long Run. In between that time the band recorded four original studio tracks for the live album Hell Freezes Over (1994), "Hole in the World" for The Very Best Of (2003) and the Joe Walsh-penned "One Day at a Time" for the Farewell 1 Tour: Live from Melbourne DVD (2005), which Walsh later re-recorded for his 2012 album Analog Man.
Alphabet City is the fourth studio album by English pop band ABC. It was originally released in October 1987, on the labels Mercury, Phonogram and Neutron, two years after their previous album How to Be a ... Zillionaire! Following a hiatus in which singer Martin Fry was being treated for Hodgkin's disease, it was recorded over a period of nine months between November 1986 and August 1987, in sessions that took place at Marcus Recording Studios in London, assisted by Bernard Edwards, best known for his work with the American band Chic.
Abracadabra is the sixth studio album by English band ABC. It was originally released in August 1991, on the label EMI. It was the final ABC album to feature founding member Mark White, who departed the band in 1992.
David Yarritu is an American musician and photographer. He was best known for his short stint as a member of the English new wave band ABC in the 1980s. He was featured in several music videos from the band's How to Be a ... Zillionaire! album, including "Be Near Me" (1985).
Lisztomania is the first soundtrack album by English keyboardist Rick Wakeman. It was released in November 1975 by A&M Records as the soundtrack for the Ken Russell's musical biographical film Lisztomania about the Hungarian composer Franz Liszt. Some tracks feature The Who's Roger Daltrey singing lead vocals.
"(How to Be A) Millionaire" is a song by English pop band ABC. It was the first single taken from their third studio album, How to Be a ... Zillionaire! (1985).
"Vanity Kills" is a song by English pop band ABC, released as the third single from their third studio album, How to Be a ... Zillionaire! (1985). It peaked at No. 70 on the UK Singles Chart and reached No. 91 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100.
The Bridge is the debut album of Canadian R&B/soul singer Melanie Fiona, released under the SRC/Universal Motown label in June 2009. It was released in the United States on November 10, 2009. The album debuted at number four on the Billboard Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart and at number 57 on the Billboard 200 chart, where it later peaked at number 27. The album received generally favorable reviews. As of February 2012, the album has sold 450,000 copies in the United States.
Monster is the twentieth and final studio album by American rock band Kiss, released on October 9, 2012. It was recorded at Conway Recording Studios in Hollywood, California and The Nook in Studio City, Los Angeles. As with 2009's Sonic Boom, Monster was produced by Paul Stanley and Greg Collins, and featured the lineup of Stanley, Gene Simmons (vocals/bass), Eric Singer (drums/vocals), and Tommy Thayer (guitar/vocals).
KRLA Beat was an American rock music magazine that operated between 1964 and 1968. It began in October 1964 as a free newsletter distributed by the Southern Californian radio station KRLA, before being reworked as a more reportage-focused title in February 1965. The music journalism archive Rock's Backpages describes KRLA Beat as "the first American newspaper dedicated to coverage of the top-forty rock-and-roll music scene".
Fetch the Bolt Cutters is the fifth studio album by American singer-songwriter Fiona Apple. It was released on April 17, 2020, Apple's first release since The Idler Wheel... in 2012. The album was recorded from 2015 to 2020, largely at Apple's home in Venice Beach. It was produced and performed by Apple alongside Amy Aileen Wood, Sebastian Steinberg and Davíd Garza; the recording consisted of long, often improvised takes with unconventional percussive sounds. GarageBand was used for much of this recording, and Fiona Apple credited the album's unedited vocals and long takes to her lack of expertise with the program.
How to Be a Zillionaire peaked at #30 on 16 November 1985
"Be Near Me" peaked at #9 on 9 November 1985