Republica | |
---|---|
Background information | |
Origin | Windsor, Berkshire, England [1] |
Genres | |
Years active |
|
Labels |
|
Members |
|
Past members |
|
Website | www |
Republica are an English alternative rock band formed in 1994. [1] They reached the height of their popularity from 1996 to 1999. The band went on hiatus in 2001 and reunited in 2008.
The Republica sound was described by the band as "technopop punk rock". The current line-up consists of Saffron (vocals), Tim Dorney (keyboards) and Johnny Male (guitar).
Former Flowered Up keyboard player Tim Dorney and Andy Todd founded Republica. [1] Singer Saffron was an actress at one point, performing for two years in London's Starlight Express . She also appeared in the video for the Chesney Hawkes' hit "The One and Only" and in the video for N-Joi's single "Mindflux". She was also lead vocalist on N-Joi's hit "Anthem" in 1990.
Republica released the first single "Out of This World" in 1994, followed by the single "Bloke" in March 1995. In April 1996, their single "Ready to Go" became their first to chart on the UK Singles Chart, when it reached Number 43. Their debut album Republica was released in July 1996 and reached No. 4 in the UK Albums Chart after being reissued in 1997. [6] The band added Johnny Male, [7] formerly of early 1990s One Little Indian [8] act Soul Family Sensation, [nb 1] as an official member on guitar, with "Ready to Go" remixed as more a rock-sounding dance track. This version became their signature single and reached No. 13. [12] [6] The fourth single, "Drop Dead Gorgeous", reached No. 7. [6]
The group attracted positive press coverage. Emerging after a wave of female-fronted rock bands (such as Elastica, Lush, Sleeper, Echobelly and Kenickie), they had, like Curve and Garbage, a notably more aggressive and electronic sound. In 1997, they contributed a cover of "Are 'Friends' Electric?" to the Gary Numan tribute album Random . That same year, Saffron performed vocals for the Prodigy's "Fuel My Fire" from their album The Fat of the Land .
The band's second album, Speed Ballads , was released in 1998 and reached No. 37 in UK Albums Chart. [6] Its lead single, "From Rush Hour With Love", peaked at No. 20 in UK Singles Chart. [6] The band suffered when their label, Deconstruction Records, folded shortly after the release of Speed Ballads. Deconstruction's back catalogue was swallowed up by BMG and Speed Ballads was never released in the United States. In 2001, Republica went on hiatus. On their official site it was posted the message "Republica are not recording at this time". [13]
In 2002 BMG released the compilation Ready to Go: The Best Of against the band's wishes. After the band went on hiatus, Saffron worked with the Cure, appearing on the single "Just Say Yes" from their Greatest Hits album. She also collaborated with Junkie XL for his 2003 album Radio JXL: A Broadcast from the Computer Hell Cabin . In September 2008, Republica reunited at Windsor at a Contra Mundum concert. They played "Ready to Go", "Drop Dead Gorgeous" and a cover of "You Got the Love". [14]
In early 2010, Republica performed a string of gigs. [15] They also issued a remixed version of "Ready to Go" entitled "Ready to Go 2010". In June 2010 the remix was released and reached No. 1 on the Upfront Club chart. The track has been produced by Andy Gray and Alan Moulder. In October 2010, the band performed a comeback gig at O2 Academy Islington followed by several dates in Eastern Europe and the Middle East in 2011. They performed at GuilFest in July 2012.
The band released a new EP, Christiana Obey, and also recorded a session for Brentwood radio station Phoenix FM in April 2013. [16] A joint 20th anniversary tour with the band Space took place in the spring of 2014. In October and early November 2014, Republica toured the UK in support of the Boomtown Rats "Ratlife" tour and took the opportunity to premiere some new material. Friday 29 May 2015 saw the public debut of more new material when Republica performed at the "Under The Bridge" venue in Chelsea, London, with support from Tenek and Kenelis. A deluxe edition of Republica was released on 28 February 2020 on Cherry Red Records.
The band released a new single, "New York" in November 2023, from their upcoming studio album Damaged Gods scheduled to be released in the spring of 2025, their first in 27 years, on Armalyte Industries. [17] The second single off the album, "Hallelujah", was released 28 June 2024.
In June 2024, Saffron announced that Steve Hewitt, former drummer of Placebo and Six by Seven, had joined Republica as the band's live drummer. [18]
Title | Album details | Peak chart positions | Certifications | ||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
UK [6] | AUS [19] | AUT [20] | GER [21] | NED [22] | NZ [23] | SCO [6] | SWI [24] | US [25] | |||
Republica |
| 4 | 95 | 34 | 47 | 36 | 26 | 9 | 48 | 153 | |
Speed Ballads |
| 37 | — | — | — | — | — | 45 | — | — | |
Damaged Gods |
| To be released |
Title | Release date | Label |
---|---|---|
Ready to Go: The Best Of | May 2002 | Camden |
Title | Release date | Label |
---|---|---|
Live at the Astoria | March 2013 | Independent |
Title | Release date | Label |
---|---|---|
Christiana Obey | March 2013 | Independent |
Title | Year | Peak chart positions | Certifications | Album | |||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
UK [6] | AUS [19] | GER [21] | IRE [27] | NED [22] | NZ [23] | SCO [28] | SWE [29] | SWI [24] | US [30] | ||||
"Out of This World" [a] | 1994 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | Non-album single | |
"Bloke" | 1995 | 81 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | Republica | |
"Ready to Go" (original mix) | 1996 | 43 | — | — | — | — | — | 59 | — | — | — | ||
"Ready to Go" (remix) | 1997 | 13 | 40 | 33 | 26 | 25 | 42 | 12 | 40 | 34 | 56 |
| |
"Drop Dead Gorgeous" | 7 | 131 | 90 | — | — | 30 | 8 | — | — | 93 | |||
"From Rush Hour with Love" | 1998 | 20 | — | — | — | — | — | 21 | — | — | — | Speed Ballads | |
"Ready to Go" (remix with Tomcraft) | 2007 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | For the Queen(Tomcraft album) | |
"Ready to Go 2010" | 2010 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | Non-album single | |
"New York" | 2023 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | Damaged Gods | |
"Hallelujah" | 2024 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | ||
Title | Year | Album |
---|---|---|
"Holly" | 1995 | Republica |
"Try Everything" | 1998 | Speed Ballads |
Baha Men are a Bahamian junkanoo band formed in New Providence, Bahamas in 1977. They are best known for their Grammy Award-winning hit song "Who Let the Dogs Out".
Greatest Hits is a greatest hits album by English rock band the Cure. It was first released in Japan on 7 November 2001, before being released in the UK and Europe on 12 November and then in the US the day after. The band's relationship with longtime label Fiction Records came to a close, and the Cure were obliged to release one final album for the label. Lead singer Robert Smith agreed to release a greatest hits album under the condition that he could choose the tracks himself. The band also recorded a special studio album released as a bonus disc to some versions of the album. The disc, titled Acoustic Hits, consists of the eighteen songs from the North American release re-recorded using acoustic instruments.
Samantha Marie Sprackling, known professionally as Saffron, is an English singer, songwriter, actress and the lead singer of the musical group Republica. She also performs solo and appeared in London's Starlight Express onstage for two years.
Culture Beat is a German Eurodance project formed in 1989 by Torsten Fenslau. The act has gone through a number of lineup changes over the years; they achieved the most success whilst fronted by singer Tania Evans and rapper Jay Supreme. Their 1993 single "Mr. Vain" was a number-one hit in eleven European countries, and the act claims to have sold more than 10 million records worldwide.
Nine Days is an American rock band from Long Island, New York. It was formed in the hamlet of St. James, Suffolk County, New York in 1994 by John Hampson and Brian Desveaux, and released three independent albums in the 1990s before their mainstream debut album, The Madding Crowd, released in 2000. The band scored a hit in the United States from the album The Madding Crowd, with the single "Absolutely ".
Nightcrawlers is a British-American house music project from Glasgow, Scotland and Chicago, Illinois, assembled by producer, DJ and vocalist John Reid.
Andrew Roachford is a British singer-songwriter and the main force behind the band Roachford, who scored their first success in 1989 with the hits "Cuddly Toy" and "Family Man". He has also had a successful solo career.
Babybird are an English rock band formed by songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Stephen Jones, who has been releasing music since 1995. While Jones' early solo work was released under the "Baby Bird" name, the altered "Babybird" was first used to distinguish the full band line-up that has changed often over the years. However, in recent years, Jones has recorded many of the Babybird albums himself, in addition to recording as a solo artist, and under various aliases including Death of the Neighbourhood, Trucker, Black Reindeer, Deluder, Arthritis Kid and others.
Speed Ballads is the second album by the band Republica. Released in 1998, the album was the follow-up to Republica's self-titled debut album.
The discography of British band New Order consists of 10 studio albums, 12 compilation albums, six live albums, five extended plays (EPs), 45 singles, 12 video releases, 40 music videos and a number of soundtrack appearances. New Order were formed in 1980 by singer, guitarist and keyboardist Bernard Sumner, bassist Peter Hook and drummer Stephen Morris. The group began life as a continuation of their former incarnation Joy Division. Joy Division had disbanded after the death of the lead singer Ian Curtis. Gillian Gilbert, who was Morris's girlfriend at the time, soon joined the group and played guitar and keyboards.
The English rock band Oasis have released seven studio albums, two live albums, five compilation albums, six video albums, one extended play, twenty seven singles which includes one double single, nineteen promotional singles and thirty-six music videos. As of 2024, the band has sold over 75 million records worldwide, making them one of the best-selling music artists of all time and been named by Guinness World Records as the most successful act in the United Kingdom between the years 1995 and 2005. Oasis had 22 consecutive UK top 10 hits between 1994 and 2008. Oasis was formed in 1991 by vocalist Liam Gallagher, guitarist Paul "Bonehead" Arthurs, bassist Paul "Guigsy" McGuigan and drummer Tony McCarroll – they were later joined by guitarist and songwriter Noel Gallagher. The band signed to Creation Records in May 1993 and released their debut single "Supersonic" the following year; it peaked at number 31 in the United Kingdom. Follow-up singles "Shakermaker" and "Live Forever" became UK top 15 hits, with the latter also attaining success in the United States. Definitely Maybe, the band's debut studio album, topped the UK Albums Chart and went on to be certified nine times platinum by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI).
Republica is the debut studio album by English band Republica. It was first released in the United States on 30 July 1996 by RCA Records, and by Deconstruction Records in the United Kingdom. Three singles were released from the album: "Bloke", "Ready to Go" and "Drop Dead Gorgeous", with the last two being hits.
"Ready to Go" is a song by English alternative rock band Republica, released as a single on 15 April 1996 from the band's debut album, Republica (1996). Two versions of the song, the US mix and the original mix, were included. This version was later featured on a greatest hits collection, Ready to Go: The Best Of.
The English rock band the Cure has released fourteen studio albums, six live albums, two remix albums, seven compilation albums, eight box sets, twelve extended plays, and forty-seven singles on Fiction Records and Geffen Records. They have also released twelve video albums and forty-four music videos.
PJ & Duncan, who were later rebranded as Ant & Dec, began their musical career in 1993 with the release of the single "Tonight I'm Free". This was followed in 1994 by their successful debut album Psyche, which included the single "Let's Get Ready to Rhumble". Their second album Top Katz (1995) was less commercially successful than Psyche although all its singles reached the UK Top 20. PJ & Duncan were rebranded as Ant & Dec after they first started moving into TV in 1996, resulting in 1997's The Cult of Ant & Dec, their final album, which reached 15 in the UK charts. Their label, Telstar Records, decided not to renew their recording contract in 1997, and their career in music ended there. They reunited for live performances in 2000 and 2013 and for a single, "We're on the Ball", in 2002.
The discography of Natalie Imbruglia, an Australian pop/rock singer, consists of six studio albums, one compilation album, one extended play, and eighteen singles. Imbruglia debuted in 1994 as an actress on the Australian soap opera Neighbours. In 1996, she began composing songs and signed a recording contract with RCA Records in the United Kingdom.
Always & Forever is the debut studio album by British girl group Eternal. It was released through EMI on 29 November 1993 and is the only studio album by Eternal to feature Louise Nurding, who left the group to embark on a solo career prior to the release of their follow-up album, Power of a Woman (1995). The album became a commercial success, spending 63 weeks in the top 40 of the UK Albums Chart, selling over one million copies in the UK alone and yielding six hit singles. As of 1997, the album had sold over four million copies worldwide. In June 2019, Always & Forever was ranked at number 15 on the Official Charts Company's Top 40 biggest girl band studio albums of the last 25 years.
This is a discography for the rock band Crowded House. As of 2021 Crowded House have sold over 15 million albums worldwide.
Rozalla Miller, better known as simply Rozalla, is a Zimbabwean electronic music performer who was born in what was then Northern Rhodesia. She is best known for her three 1991/92 hit singles "Faith ", "Are You Ready to Fly", and particularly "Everybody's Free ", which has been remixed and re-issued several times. In December 2016, Billboard magazine ranked her as the 98th most successful dance artist of all-time.
"Drop Dead Gorgeous" is a song by English alternative rock band Republica. Released in 1996 on their self-titled debut album and in 1997 as the album's third and final single from the album, it was as a commercial success, giving the group their only top 10 hit to date in the UK. The single elicited a positive critical reaction, and was also a minor hit in the US, New Zealand, and Germany. The music video, which went into rotation on MTV, was nominated for "Best Video" at the 1998 Brit Awards.