Amy Studt
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| Amy Studt | |
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 Promotional picture from her website
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| Background information | |
| Born | March 22, 1986 London, U.K. |
| Origin | Bournemouth, U.K. |
| Genre(s) | Pop |
| Instrument(s) | Vocals, piano |
| Years active | 2002–present |
| Label(s) | 2002–2004: Polydor 2006–present: 19 Entertainment |
Amy Jane Studt (born March 22, 1986) is a British singer, songwriter and musician. Growing up in a musical family she recorded her first demo by age 14, which eventually got her signed to Polydor. Studt released her first single "Just a Little Girl" in July 2002, to international success. It was followed almost a year later by "Misfit", which came to be her highest charting single. The same month her debut album False Smiles appeared. Late 2003 and early 2004 two more singles were released, "Under the Thumb" and "All I Wanna Do" respectively, but only to diminishing sales. That caused Polydor to let go of Studt in February 2004.
From then until the end of 2006, Studt stayed out of the public eye. But in 2007 it was announced that she was working on a new album, now with the label 19 Entertainment. Some of her new material was published on MySpace. On December 3, 2007, "Furniture" was released as a digital single, the new album - My Paper Made Men - was released on 5 May 2008.
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[edit] Early life
Growing up in Bournemouth, Southern England, Amy Studt started teaching herself piano, playing guitar and learning the oboe. Studt's father is a violinist and a conductor who has toured with Roy Orbison and played on films, while her mother was head of music at a school.
From the age of 13, she attended Bryanston School, Dorset. By the time Studt was 14, she had written 42 songs. Her father, who regularly works in studios, suggested she record some. She gave or sold the finished CD to various friends, and one found its way to Simon Fuller (manager of Annie Lennox, Spice Girls and S Club 7, among others).
[edit] False Smiles (2002–2004)
Studt released her first single, "Just a Little Girl", in July 2002, dubbed by some as the UK's answer to Avril Lavigne, even though Studt had in fact written most of the songs on her debut album before Avril Lavigne had first entered a recording studio. Her debut entered the UK charts at #14 but straight after the release she seemed to disappear off the scene. "Just a Little Girl" found its way onto playlists in New York City, Los Angeles and throughout the United States. In the United States, she is generally considered a one-hit wonder, but "Just a Little Girl" still receives occasional airplay on CHR stations.
Almost eleven months later, however, Studt returned to the UK music scene in June 2003 with her second single "Misfit". The lyrics of the song criticise those who conform to the general stereotypes of teenage life – the in-crowd – calling them superficial while Studt states she is comfortable with being labelled a misfit. "Misfit" received greater video and airplay than her debut, resulting in a chart position of #6 in the UK chart, an improvement of eight places. Alongside the chart success of "Misfit" was the release of Studt's debut album False Smiles, which entered the chart at #24.
September 2003 saw the release of the third cut from the album, "Under the Thumb". The song became her second Top 10 and third Top 20 single, entering at #10, which also helped push the album to a peak of #18. False Smiles has since been certified Gold, selling around 200,000 copies in the UK and was even considered for the much coveted Mercury Music Prize shortlist. In an attempt to sell more copies of the album, False Smiles was re-released at the beginning of 2004 adding one new track, a cover of the Sheryl Crow classic, "All I Wanna Do". The song failed to set the charts alight at all, peaking at #21. The album re-release also failed to improve sales, missing out on the Top 40 altogether. Subsequently, Studt was dropped from her record label Polydor.[1][2]
[edit] My Paper Made Men (2007-present)
After some silent time, in early 2006, Amy Studt signed onto the 19 Entertainment label.[3] She also toured with Razorlight under the alias Jane Wails in order to stay out of the limelight and overcome stagefright.
"Furniture", a single taken from the album, "My Paper Made Men" was released on December 3, 2007. Some of her new material surfaced through MySpace, including a studio track titled "My Paper Made Man" which was available at the account of music producer Guy Sigsworth. In March 2007, several live recordings were made available on her own account,[4] to which a recent photo shoot and a new biography were added in July 2007. Her new songs have received positive reviews, which suggested that listeners "ignore any dim memories of her midteens pop phase [from] a while ago."[5]
Her latest single "Chasing the Light" was released April 28, 2008. The video for this single is now available to watch on YouTube.
Her second album "My Paper Made Men" was released May 5, 2008.
[edit] Discography
[edit] Albums
| Year | Album | Chart positions | Sales and certification | |||||||
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| UK | IRE | AUS | SWE | NET | ||||||
| 2003 | False Smiles
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BPI sales: 200,000+ BPI certification: Gold |
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| 2008 | My Paper Made Men
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BPI sales: TBA BPI certification: TBA |
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| "—" denotes albums that were released but did not chart. | ||||||||||
[edit] Singles
| Year | Title | Chart positions[6] | Album | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UK | IRE | AUS | NET | SWE | ||||||
| 2002 | "Just a Little Girl" | 14 | False Smiles | |||||||
| 2003 | "Misfit" | 6 | 17 | 48 | 11 | 32 | ||||
| "Under the Thumb" | 10 | 36 | — | — | — | |||||
| 2004 | "All I Wanna Do" | 21 | 25 | |||||||
| 2007 | "Furniture" | — | My Paper Made Men | |||||||
| 2008 | "Chasing the Light" | 277 | ||||||||
| "—" denotes singles that were released but did not chart. | ||||||||||
[edit] External links
- Amy Studt official website
- Amy Studt MySpace account
- Amy Studt fansite
- Amy Studt News and Reviews on The Mag
[edit] References
- ^ Amy axed as record sales flop, accessed September 10, 2007
- ^ Studt dropped by her label, accessed September 10, 2007
- ^ Amy Studt artist page at 19 Entertainment, accessed September 10, 2007
- ^ Fansite newspost mentioning live recordings of new material on MySpace, accessed September 10, 2007
- ^ LA Times: Brits accent quirky, diverse new voices, accessed January 4, 2008
- ^ Amy Studt - Misfit - Music Charts
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