This article needs to be updated.(March 2018) |
Sonique | |
---|---|
Background information | |
Birth name | Sonia Marina Clarke |
Also known as | Sonique |
Born | Crouch End, North London, England | 21 June 1965
Genres | |
Occupations |
|
Instruments |
|
Years active | 1985–present |
Labels | |
Website | soniqueclarke |
Sonia Marina Clarke [2] (born 21 June 1965), [3] better known by her stage name Sonique, is a British singer, musician and DJ. [4] She came to public attention as a member of dance band S'Express during the early 1990s, but achieved greater success as a solo artist in the early-to mid 2000s. During this period, she achieved UK top 20 hits with "It Feels So Good", "Sky", "I Put a Spell on You" and "Can't Make Up My Mind", and won the 2001 BRIT Award for British female solo artist.
Sonia Clarke was born and raised in Crouch End to parents of Trinidadian descent. The first record she ever purchased was Donna Summer's "I Feel Love". When Sonique was sixteen, her mother remarried and moved back to Trinidad. She refused to move with her mother and two siblings and instead stayed in London, moving into the YMCA.
At the age of seventeen, a youth worker commented that she had a nice voice and suggested she use it. She put together a reggae band called 'Fari', in which she ended up writing all the music. After Fari disbanded she set about getting a recording contract.
Sonique released the single "Let Me Hold You", published by Cooltempo, in 1985. [5] The single hit the Top 40 on the UK Dance Chart.
In 1990, she was credited for the track "Zombie Mantra", which was included on the album Set the Controls for the Heart of the Bass , the debut record of William Orbit's project Bass-O-Matic. Soon after, she teamed again with DJ Mark Moore, a few years after providing vocals for S'Express. [5] The dance-pop duo charted in the UK Singles Chart with singles such as "Nothing to Lose". [5] She maintained a friendship with Mark Moore after S'Express disbanded and, shortly afterwards, he gave her the gift of a set of turntables and a mixer with which she began experimenting.
For three years, she accompanied both Mark Moore and her childhood friend Judge Jules to their gigs. She eventually signed to London-based label Serious Records, where her first single was "I Put a Spell on You" produced by Chris Allen and ex-Wang Chung keyboardist Graeme Pleeth. [6] She was DJ-in-residence at Club Manumission in Ibiza between 1997 and 1999.
In 1998, she came to the attention of UK promoters/label Fantazia and was asked to mix one of the discs on their album Fantazia British Anthems Summertime. [5] The album was certified gold in the UK.
Sonique released her debut solo album Hear My Cry in 1998. [7] Re-released in 2000, the album's hit single "It Feels So Good" topped the UK chart for three weeks in May/June of that year. After 14 weeks in the Top 40, it became the UK's third best-selling single of 2000. In 2001, after the success of "It Feels So Good" she announced that she planned to retire from the world of DJing to focus on her singing career. After finishing the album Born to Be Free , Sonique did return to DJing on a few special occasions.
In 2004, Sonique announced she was working on an album called On Kosmo. The first single was "Another World", which reached number 57 in Germany when released in 2004. "Why" (released Spring 2005), reached number 90 in Germany.
"Alone" was selected as the third single with which the album would be launched, but when the album got pushed back from the expected release date of February 2006, the single was cancelled. When the new release date of 29 September 2006 was announced, the track "Sleezy" was chosen as the single with which the album was to be released. However, "Sleezy" was also cancelled when the release date was pushed back once again. When On Kosmo was finally released, on Monday 13 November 2006, it failed to chart significantly in the UK. Nevertheless, Sonique was shown as a celebrity guest at 2006 edition of the World Music Awards, in London.
In 2007, when promotional work for her previous album, On Kosmo, was finished, Sonique announced she would continue touring Europe despite the flop of the album. A teaser from some of the new material she had been working on, entitled "Better Than That", 'leaked' online on 5 October 2008. Due to the positive reception of this 'leak', the track was posted available to download on various legal MP3 download sites.
She was diagnosed with breast cancer in June 2009, for which she underwent surgery at a London clinic. Following her operations, Sonique opted to receive 5 months of chemotherapy in an effort to prevent a recurrence. [8] She was given the all clear in 2010 and celebrated by appearing on a cover version of the Cyndi Lauper song Girls Just Want To Have Fun , which was released to raise funds for the Cancer Research UK charity. [9]
The single "World of Change" was released on 23 October 2009 and the official video was posted by Sonique's label on YouTube.
The year 2011 brought the release of the album Sweet Vibrations, which contains the previously released singles "Better Than That" and "World of Change".
In March 2024 Sonique sold out her own show at the Royal Festival Hall with special guests Baby-D and Rozalla and added a string-section and choir to her band. [10]
On 27 June 2024, Sonique performed a DJ set on the Silver Hayes stage at the Glastonbury Festival.
Title | Album details | Peak chart positions | Certifications | ||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
UK [11] | AUS [12] | AUT [13] | GER [14] | IRE [15] | NOR [16] | NZ [17] | SWE [18] | SWI [19] | US [20] | ||||
Hear My Cry | 6 | 69 | 9 | 17 | 45 | 12 | 20 | 10 | 2 | 67 | |||
Born to Be Free |
| 142 | — | — | 97 | — | — | — | — | — | — | ||
On Kosmo |
| — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | ||
Sweet Vibrations |
| — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | ||
"—" denotes a recording that did not chart or was not released in that territory. |
Title | Year | Peak chart positions | Certifications | Album | |||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
UK [11] | AUT [13] | FRA [23] | GER [24] | IRE [15] | NOR [16] | NZ [17] | SWE [18] | SWI [19] | US [25] | ||||
"Let Me Hold You" | 1985 | 99 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | Non-album single | |
"I Put a Spell on You" [A] | 1998 | 36 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | Hear My Cry | |
"It Feels So Good" [B] | 24 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | |||
"It Feels So Good" (re-release) | 2000 | 1 | 2 | 8 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 7 | 3 | 2 | 8 | ||
"Sky" | 2 | 8 | 22 | 11 | 10 | 6 | 48 | 13 | 18 | — |
| ||
"I Put a Spell on You" (re-release) | 8 | — | — | 70 | 18 | — | — | 28 | 44 | — | |||
"Can't Make Up My Mind" | 2003 | 17 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | Born to Be Free | |
"Alive" | 70 | 33 | — | 39 | — | — | — | — | 80 | — | |||
"Another World" (with Tomcraft) | 2004 | — | 75 | — | 57 | — | — | — | — | — | — | Sonique on Kosmo | |
"Why" | 2005 | — | — | — | 90 | — | — | — | — | — | — | ||
"Sleezy" | 2006 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | ||
"Better Than That" | 2009 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | Sweet Vibrations | |
"World of Change" | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | |||
"Only You" (with Paul Morrell) | 2010 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | Non-album singles | |
"Don't Give a Damn" | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | |||
"Givin' It Up" (with Christian Luke) | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | |||
"What You're Doin'" (with Paul Morrell) | 2011 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | ||
"Tonight" | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | |||
"Carry On" (with Johnny Gerontakis) | 2013 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | ||
"Don't Put Me Down" | 2017 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | ||
"Feels So Good" (with Ramiro) | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | |||
"Melody" (with Mauro Picotto) | 2018 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | ||
"Shake" (featuring Power of Muzik) | 2019 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | ||
"Keep On Lovin" (with Dario G) [30] | 2021 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | ||
"Prisoner" | 2023 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | ||
"—" denotes a recording that did not chart or was not released in that territory. |
Year | Awards | Work | Category | Result | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
2000 | MOBO Awards | "It Feels So Good" | Best UK Single | Nominated | [31] |
MTV Europe Music Awards | Best Song | Nominated | [32] | ||
Herself | Best New Act | Nominated | |||
Best Dance | Nominated | ||||
Best UK & Ireland Act | Nominated | ||||
NME Awards | Best Dance Act | Nominated | [33] | ||
Smash Hits Poll Winners Party | Best Dance/Soul Act | Nominated | [34] | ||
"It Feels So Good" | Best Dance Choon | Nominated | [35] | ||
The Record of the Year | Record of the Year | Nominated | |||
2001 | BMI Pop Awards | Award-Winning Song | Won | [36] | |
Ivor Novello Awards | International Hit of the Year | Won | |||
Best Selling UK Single | Nominated | ||||
Hungarian Music Awards | Hear My Cry | Best Foreign Dance Album | Nominated | ||
International Dance Music Awards | Herself | Best New Dance Artist Solo | Won | ||
DanceStar Awards | DanceStar of the Year | Won | |||
Brit Awards | British Female Solo Artist | Won | [37] | ||
British Dance Act | Nominated | ||||
"It Feels So Good" | British Single of the Year | Nominated | |||
British Video of the Year | Nominated |
S'Express was a British dance music act from the late 1980s, who had one of the earliest commercial successes in the acid house genre.
Alison Moira Clarkson, better known as Betty Boo, is a British singer, songwriter and rapper. She first came to mainstream prominence in the late 1980s following a collaboration with the Beatmasters on the song "Hey DJ/I Can't Dance ". Between 1990 and 1992 she had a successful solo career, which spawned a number of chart-placing singles, most notably "Doin' the Do", "Where Are You Baby?", and "Let Me Take You There".
April M. Coates is an Australian singer, songwriter and producer who performs as Cheyne Coates or Cheyne. Coates and Andrew Van Dorsselaer comprised the duo Madison Avenue (1998–2003). Their song "Don't Call Me Baby" peaked at number two on the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) Singles Chart in 1999 and topped the charts in New Zealand and the United Kingdom in 2000, as well as the Billboard dance charts the United States. Since the break-up of Madison Avenue in 2003, Cheyne recorded an album, Something Wicked This Way Comes, and its first single "I've Got Your Number" which reached No. 26 in 2004.
Gina G is a retired Australian singer who represented the United Kingdom at the Eurovision Song Contest in 1996, with the song "Ooh Aah... Just a Little Bit", which reached No. 1 in the UK Singles Chart. The song also reached the US top 20 in 1997 and earned her a 1998 Grammy Award nomination for Best Dance Recording. Her other UK Top 30 hits are "I Belong to You" #6 (1996), "Fresh" #6 (1997), "Ti Amo" #11 (1997) and "Gimme Some Love" #25 (1997).
Birgit Dieckmann, known professionally as Billie Ray Martin, is a German singer and songwriter, known for her single "Your Loving Arms", which reached the top 10 of both the UK singles chart (#6) and the Irish Singles Chart (#8) in 1995, and reached number one on the US Dance Club Chart. She was also one of the vocalists on the S'Express UK top 10 hit single "Hey Music Lover" (1989), and had UK top 40 hits as lead vocalist of Electribe 101 with "Tell Me When the Fever Ended" (1989) and "Talking with Myself" (1990), and as a solo singer with "Running Around Town" (1995) and "Imitation of Life" (1996).
Myles MacInnes, better known by his stage name Mylo, is a Scottish electronic musician and record producer. His 2004 album Destroy Rock & Roll peaked at number 26 on the UK Albums Chart. He is best known for his 2005 single "Doctor Pressure", a mashup of his own track "Drop the Pressure" and Miami Sound Machine's 1984 song "Dr. Beat"; it peaked at number 3 on the UK Singles Chart.
Jacqueline Graham is a British singer-songwriter. Following her hit version of "Could It Be I'm Falling in Love" with David Grant in 1985, Graham scored a further five UK top 20 hits over a two-year period. In 1994, her cover version of Chaka Khan's hit "Ain't Nobody" reached number one on the US Billboard Dance Club Songs.
Jessica Elisabeth Angelique Folcker, known professionally as Jessica, is a Swedish singer. Her debut album Jessica in 1998 used her mononym, whereas follow up album Dino credited Jessica Folker. Her following albums På svenska in 2005 and Skin Close in 2007 have used her full name Jessica Folcker. She is best known for her two international hits "Tell Me What You Like" and "How Will I Know " both in 1998 and for "(Crack It) Something Going On" that featured her vocals and was a big hit for Bomfunk MC's in 2002.
"It Feels So Good" is a song by British singer Sonique. It was originally released on 9 November 1998 and peaked at number 24 on the UK Singles Chart. In May 2000, in the wake of the song's success in the United States, the single was re-released and spent three weeks at number one on the same chart. The song remained in the top 40 for 14 weeks and became the third-biggest-selling single of 2000 in Britain. It has sold over 800,000 copies in the UK as of May 2020.
Hear My Cry is the debut studio album by British singer Sonique, released on 15 February 2000. It features the singles "It Feels So Good", which reached number one in the UK Singles Chart, "I Put a Spell on You" and "Sky". The album has sold over half a million copies in the UK alone.
English electronic music group the Prodigy has released seven studio albums, one live album, one compilation album, one mix album, three extended plays, twenty-one singles, and twenty-two music videos. Hailed as pioneers of genres such as rave, techno, and big beat, the group have sold over 20 million albums worldwide. As of 9 November 2018 their UK album sales stood at 4,707,982.
American singer Gwen Stefani has released four studio albums, two extended plays, 34 singles, six promotional singles, one video album, and 28 music videos. She has sold more than nine million albums as a solo artist. Stefani is also the lead singer of the rock band No Doubt, with which she has released several albums.
The discography of Jamelia, a British R&B singer, consists of three studio albums, one greatest hits album, and fourteen singles, fifteen music videos, and one live DVD of a concert performance. She has contributed to the albums of two other artists, and appeared on two soundtrack albums. Jamelia signed with Capitol Records in 1996, and her debut single, "So High", was released on 3 May 1999. It failed to chart and she left the record company before an album was released. Later that year, Jamelia released "I Do" with Parlophone, which was followed up in 2000 with her first top five single, titled "Money", and her debut album Drama.
Eliza Sophie Caird, better known by her former stage name Eliza Doolittle now Eliza, is an English singer and songwriter from Westminster, London. After performing her music in live venues around London from the age of 15, Eliza signed to Parlophone in 2008.
American singer Selena Gomez has released three solo studio albums, one compilation album, three extended plays (EPs), 36 singles, three promotional singles, and two charity singles. Gomez has sold 6.7 million albums worldwide by October 2015. As of August 2023, she has sold 3.6 million albums in the United States, and shifted more than 11.5 million album equivalent units, including her releases with The Scene. As of May 2017, she has sold 24.3 million songs in the U.S. According to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), she has achieved 47.5 million certified units, and a further 19.5 million as part of Selena Gomez & the Scene, in the U.S. She has a total of 41 chart entries on the US Billboard Hot 100, including a number one and nine top-ten songs.
The discography of Faithless, a British electronic band, consists of nine studio albums, four remix albums, three compilation albums, thirty-seven singles and a number of other appearances. They are perhaps best known for their 1995 hit single "Insomnia"; it was voted by Mixmag readers as the fifth greatest dance record of all time in 2013, was certified triple platinum by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) in 2023, with sales of over 1.8million.
Intercourse is the second studio album by English dance music act S'Express. For this release, S'Express was basically Mark Moore and Sonique with a variety of guest vocalists and musicians. It was originally released in the US in 1991 with a UK / European release following shortly afterwards.
The discography of Nadia Ali, a Pakistani American singer-songwriter, consists of two studio albums, three remix albums, thirty-six singles and fourteen music videos. Ali began her career in 2001 as the frontwoman of New York-based house music act iiO, whose debut single "Rapture" reached number two on the UK Singles Chart and Billboard Hot Dance Club Play Chart and charted in several other countries. While with iiO, she released the 2005 studio album Poetica, which reached number 17 on Billboard Dance/Electronic Albums chart. Apart from "Rapture", the album produced five other singles including the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play number one single "Is It Love?". Ali left iiO in 2005, while the band continued to release material featuring her on vocals, most notably the 2011 studio album Exit 110.
The discography of DJ Fresh, an English drum and bass and dubstep producer and DJ, consists of three studio albums and 29 singles.
Conor Paul Maynard is an English singer. Born and raised in Brighton, he signed a recording contract with Warner Music Group in 2011. Maynard rose to fame in 2012 when he was nominated for, and subsequently won, MTV's Brand New for 2012 award. His debut album, Contrast, was released in July 2012 which produced the successful single "Can't Say No". Maynard released his second and third albums, Covers and +11 Hours, in 2016 and 2023, respectively.