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PandoraDon't You Know
There is a famous saying that especially talented people have been "kissed by the Muse". Pandora a.k.a. Anneli Magnusson at least was singing before she could talk. "My mother has told me that it was my father who discovered my musical talent.
I was still a baby at the time - I was already singing melodies
then, long before I could speak." Her childhood was characterized by a love of music. Pandora's parents lived
with their 5 children in Björkbacken, a small town in central Sweden.
In the family's living room there was always a guitar hanging on
the wall and in the corner stood an imposing electric organ. "When I was about nine years old I began making music at home with my brother.
We lived in a fairly remote area of the country and there were
very few children to play with in the afternoons, so we had plenty
of time to make music." Pandora discovered contemporary rock and pop music
in all its facets. She began to like the folk songs of the likes
of Bob Dylan and adored the lascivious guitar-playing and blues-orientated
voice of Eric Clapton. Her greatest idol however was always Mark
Knopfler. "I just loved the Dire Straits song 'Sultans Of Swing'. My older brothers and
sisters would listen to the album and I really came to love that
particular song. I would sit in my room and try to copy the solo
on my acoustic guitar. You can imagine how difficult that was." When she was fourteen, the dedicated vegetarian occasionally performed Bob Dylan
and Cat Stevens songs in a nearby cafe, which brought her first-hand
experience of performing "live". Some time later she went in search of people on the same wavelength and sang
funk, soul and gospel songs in various bands. At the age of sixteen Pandora began to study classical vocal technique, classical guitar and theory of music at the College of Music in Västerås, a small town not far from Stockholm. Today she says that it was especially the atmosphere at that college which was so good for her and influenced her in a lasting way. It was there that she experienced living, seemingly limitless creativity. "All of the students had the same passion for music, and I was able to play with really brilliant people. That was exactly what I had always wanted all my life. I learned how to compose there, to read music and to understand the theoretical basics. However, I did not particularly enjoy music theory, because it seemed to me to take away much of the necessary spontaneity needed in music." During this period, she was introduced to Hit
Vision, the three producers Martin Ankelius, Peter Johansson and
Henrik Andersson, who were looking for a suitable female singer
for their melodic dance music compositions. The music college recommended
their student Pandora, who turned out to be the ideal candidate
to perform the trio's ideas of contemporary pop music. Pandora's commercial career finally began in the
winter of 1993/94. In autumn 1993 she signed a contract with a
Swedish record company and released her debut single "Trust Me", which went straight into the Swedish charts. Written and produced by Sir Martin & The Dr. Maxx Family, "Trust Me" became the best-selling local single of the year and went gold, thereby exceeding
the achievements of Ace of Base, among others. The corresponding
album, "One Of A Kind", was released in October 1993, bringing the singer further fame and achieving
gold status in both Sweden and Finland - making Pandora the best-selling
dance act in Scandinavia. Two years later Pandora landed yet another gold disc with her follow-up album "Tell The World". In Scandinavia sales of the album again exceeded the 100,000 mark. In addition, Japanese audiences turned out to be very enthusiastic about Pandora. "Tell The World" selling more than 1 million albums in Asia alone. Japan Radio Hit Reward. The song Tell the world
was #1 six months on ZIP FM in Nagoya! A record for the station. Her third album "Changes" was Pandora's worldwide debut release with her new record company Universal Music. Sticking to the motto "never change a winning team", Pandora once again collaborated with her creative trio of Ankelius/Andersson/Johansson and the result was this brilliant album, packed full of great dance tunes, which sold more than 500,000 copies in Japan and went platinum there. What's more, the English "Metro" producer
team, which was responsible for Gina G.'s international success,
contributed the remix for three songs and two new titles to the
European version of the album, which then went gold in Finland
with the singles taken from the album reaching the Top Ten of the
Finnish charts. Pandora went on tour through Scandinavia in the spring and summer of 1997 and did her first 2-week live tour through the main cities of Japan, where she always played to sell-out venues. Then along came the next long-player "This Could Be Heaven", a fine collection of fourteen dance and up-tempo tracks, which went platinum in Japan within six weeks. Yet again produced mainly by her long-term partners,
Hit Vision, "Metro Productions", and this time also Mats Nyman. "This Could Be Heaven" set a new course in Pandora's career. For the first time, she had written three
of the songs herself, arranged and produced by songwriter Mats
Nyman, the keyboarder with Pandora's live band. When Pandora recorded and released the official German TV ARD Olympic song "Spirit To Win" in 1998 for the Winter Olympics in Nagano her best-of album "Pandora's Hit Box" was released, also in 1998. In September 1998 Universal Australia released
the Pandora single "A Little Bit", which went platinum in 1999. As a result of this fantastic success in such
a far-away place, Pandora went Down Under for the first time in
her life, where she played all the big cities (Sydney, Adelaide,
Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane) and later released an "Australia only" album - entitled "Blue", At the beginning of 1999 there followed the next studio album "Breathe", which due to unforeseen circumstances was only released in Japan. This was a great shame, as "Breathe" presented
a new, more rock-orientated Pandora, which was partly a result
of working together with ex-Europe guitarist Kee Marcello. Because
she started as a rock singer as a teenager she felt a need of expressing
that side of her but mixed with cool dance beats made by the producer
Daniel Papalexis. Her seventh album entitled "No Regrets", was recorded between August and November 1999 and was released in end of 1999 in Japan. Because of all the hazel around the merge between Universal and Polygram the album was never released anywhere else even though that was the plan.An album which is again dedicated more to dance rhythms and yet another result of Pandora's fantastic collaboration with people like Kee Marcello, Mats Nyman, Metro and Papalexis. Pandora is particularly happy that Metro is again on board, with the team's recent successes in landing mega-hits for Cher ("Believe") Celine Dion, Tina Turner etc. On "No Regrets" Pandora has once again contributed some of her own songs, and on the track "Close To You" she can be heard playing the guitar for the first time on her own album. Pandora, who now lives in a big 200-year-old country house 40 km south of Västerås, wrote several of the songs with various people also involved in the album - such as Mats Nyman, Kee Marcello, Kurt Sahlén, Peter Bladh, Daniel Papalexis and Kadir Taysir. Worthy of special mention on the album are the
songs "Close To You", it was a poem written by the Swedish journalist Björn Stenvall, which Pandora
arranged for the guitar; "Be My Man", produced by Papalexis, the tune which was written by Katharina Lass but with
new lyrics from Pandora; the track "Midnight Sun", Pandora's homage to the winter and almost an advertising song for her homeland
...and “No Regrets” the title song of the album. An interesting point is the song “On A Night Like
This”. It was written during the recordings in the studio for Pandora.
About nine months later she started to get mails from fans on her
homepage saying; how come Kylie Minouge has released your song?
Because of different contractual circumstances the writers had
giving it both to Kylie and another artist called Ana Vissi from
Greece. That created some troubles for Pandora for a while and
the result was that both Pandora and Ana lost the game. The album “A Little Closer” was born during the fall 2000 and it was released on Universal in Japan in February 2001. “It was a big struggle from day one”; she says. “I always use to have three writing /producing teams involved to be able to finish the record within four months. That’s how I have to work to keep the “one record a year” tradition; she explains”. A song worth mentioning in particularly is “Every Second Beat”. It’s the first time Pandora does a duet on a record. She asked Kee to write a duet for her to make this album a little different comparing to the other ones. “He asked me whom I wanted to sing with and I answered with a smile; Eric Martin from MR. Big! I adore his voice but I said it most as a joke since I thought it would be impossible; she continues”. This is again another up-tempo Pandora album but with a stronger mix of club tracks, pop songs, some gospel influences and 2 step. Kee Marcello is the man behind the tougher rave beats on the album and Mats Nyman is slicker in his productions. A for Pandora new writer is Tomas Jansson and his colleague Leif Sundin. They wrote one song on the album. The day before Christmas the album was ready to
be sent off to Japan and if it wouldn’t have snowed that much,
and if she had switched to winter tires or if the plane could have
landed so the taxi didn’t have to go all the way to Stockholm .
. .and cost a fortune. She would have made it in exact time, so
she made it only one day late. This year has been a special year in Pandora’s
personal life since she decided to make reality of things she just
talks about. So, in September 2000 she starts a nine months long
conscious breathing course. She also joined a Gospel choir in her
neighbourhood but what she sees as the biggest challenge is the
motorcycle license! “I’ve been talking about how cool it would
be to drive the bike since I was sixteen. I thought it was time
to do something about it. At last “Won’t Look Back” is Pandora’s album number
eight. She presented all her best material for EMI in Finland and
they agreed on a deal. It’s going to be released in Scandinavia
and Germany, Austria and Switzerland to start with “I’m sure the
fans will recognise me but hopefully they will feel that I’ve grown
as a singer and as a person; she says”. This album contains songs
from Brian Rawling (Metro Production), Kee Marcello, Diane Warren,
Mats Nyman and Art Garfunkel. You can hear a pretty different version
of his wonderful song Bright Eyes. I’m so looking forward to be
able to give my fans the very best of me. Enjoy! New genre, new relation, new beginning. .. 2003
Pandora divorced her husband and business partner for eight years.
It was the beginning of a now four year’s long process in court
coverage by the media. She also met a new man and they got her
first baby together Aug 2nd 2004. They named him Leon, since he
was born in the sign Lion. Each of Pandora’s album titles are related
to her life somehow; 9 Lives means it’s her 9th album, she´s a
cat person and cats have nine lives, meaning that she´s always
coming back! This time she is involved in everything from writing
to producing and mixing. She’s been very careful about the sound
and particularly the messages in the songs. It’s a strong rock/pop
album, with a nice balance of midtempo, ballads and uptempo tracks
where each song has true hitpotencial. Her own favorites are Best
Friends, Invicible girl, I’m the better woman and I’m Confused.
What is yours? On March 28, 2007, Pandora accused British Eurovision act Scooch of having plagiarized her 1999 song "No Regrets", and planned to file a complaint with the EBU. In response to the plagiarism claim, BBC issued a statement saying that Scooch's song is "an original" and the writers "were never aware of Pandora or her songs". BBC confirmed that there had been no duplication of her work.[1] Back to square one. . . . stronger than ever before!It all started in Finland last winter when Pandora performed three concerts in Helsinki, outsold and crazy! It was the first live performances after a long break. She realized that her hits are still really big hits that people loves to hear! When she received requests from Dj´s who thought it was time to make remixes of her biggest hits Pandora thought it was a brilliant idea to reproduce the songs and make many different versions instead of just making remixes. Said and done! This has now resulted in a 16 track long unique Greatest Hits club-album where you can find The naked sun, Tell the world, Don’t you know, Trust me, One of us, Come on and do it, One of a kind, The sands of time etc., etc. Release October the 31st. A whole range of dj/producers are involved. From young up-comers’ to Finnish JS16 & VINYLSHAKERZ from Germany to Swedish Vasco & Millboy and Playmaker. The first single out was of course Trust Me. Produced
by Vasco & Millboy and Dick Örnå. It entered the Swedish dance chart at # 24 and stayed
top 20 on the single chart for amazingly 32 weeks(peak#2)!!! The
second single Don’t you know, has 20 weeks on the single chart
(peak#1)! Another single, "On A Night Like This", which was originally included on her album No Regrets was remixed re-released
towards the end of 2007. After several gigs in Sweden Pandora just
finished her two months long One woman show tour in Finland and
the success is a fact when the gigs are once again outsold. “It’s
the first time I go on tour alone with only two sound and light
engineers who barely speak English, but I really count this tour
to one of the best ones in my career, she says” I’d like to say
thank you to my fans for keeping me on stage for thirteen years!”
The album, titled Celebration, was released on November 7, 2007
in Finland and November 28, 2007 in Sweden. On August 1, 2009, Pandora was interviewed and
also performed a new song, Kitchy Kitchy, live which was broadcasted
by SR P3 all over Sweden. During the interview, the producers of
Bloom 06 (Two former members of Eiffel 65,) were also present revealing
they are going to work with Pandora. One of a Kind (1993) [edit] Singles
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