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GEO & sweetbox
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Introduction
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Sweetbox began as an idea of German producer Roberto "Geo" Rosan. He wanted to work with different styles and singers, like taking candy out of a box without exactly knowing its taste, hence the name Sweetbox.
Geo first started with singer Kimberley Kearney. In 1995, Sweetbox released its first single, Booyah Here We Go, with airplay worldwide. Geo then began to work with another singer, Dacia Bridges, and together
they released the single Shakalaka in late 1995, which also had airplay worldwide, peaking at #1 on the New York City Club Charts for 3 weeks in early 1996. Dacia also was the singer for Sweetbox's third single,
Wot, but would also be Dacia's last single as Sweetbox's singer. In late 1996, Kimberley Kearney and Geo worked together to release another single, Never Alone, though this would also be Kimberley's last single as Sweetbox's frontwoman.
Geo then met rapper-singer-songwriter Tina Harris. Sweetbox was reborn with a new frontwoman. In 1997 Sweetbox released the single I'll Die For You, with airplay mostly in Europe. Later that year, however,
Sweetbox released another single, and one that would surpass the previous singles: Everything's Gonna Be Alright. The single hit the top of music charts all across the world, first in Europe and then onto
Asia and to the rest of the world. Based on Bach's Air on a G String, the popularity of this single led to another single sampling classical music, Don't Go Away, in 1998 in Europe and Asia. Later singles
in Europe and Asia were Sometimes and Shout, a remake of the Tears For Fears hit. Also in 1998, Sweetbox released its self-titled debut album, allowing Tina and Geo to showcase their work that had begun in 1997.
In Japan the album reached double platinum status and sold 3 million copies worldwide. Sweetbox also won 2 Japanese Grammies, for Best International Artist and Best Song of the Year (for Everything's Gonna Be Alright).
Because of Sweetbox's immense success in Europe and Asia, the single Everything's Gonna Be Alright was released in America in 1998, featured in Lancôme perfume commercials. The album Everything's Gonna Be Alright, a shorterversion
of the album Sweetbox, was released, and in 1999 the single U Make My Love Come Down was released. Sweetbox toured the US, opening and playing with various American pop groups.
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A New Star is Born
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Jade Valerie Villalon & Classified
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After all the success, Tina and Geo split as a team. Geo, however, found his next inspiration, after his friend, fellow songwriter Alan Rich, discovered an 18 year old singer-songwriter-actress named Jade Villalon in Los Angeles.
Geo brought Jade to Germany and he started a girl group named Gemstone, consisting of Villalon and 2 other girls. The group eventually split, however, and then Geo and Jade once again brought new life to Geo's Sweetbox. Because of the
popularity of the singles Everything's Gonna Be Alright and Don't Go Away, which both featured classical themes, Geo and Jade decided to continue the idea for their songs. Working with the Prague Royal Symphony Orchestra, Sweetbox's songs
focused more on pop sounds rather than the hip hop sounds of the former frontwomen. In autumn of 2000, Sweetbox's first single with Jade was released, called Trying To Be Me, featuring Mucky, a singer from the German pop group Fusion.
The single was primarily promoted in Europe, although the single was also released in Korea. In early 2001, a second single was released, For The Lonely. This single was released throughout Europe and Asia and would become one of the most
popular songs from the second Sweetbox album, Classified. In February of 2001, the Classified album was released in Japan, and would eventually reach platinum status. Later in spring 2001 the album was released in Europe and Asia. Two other singles were released,
Cinderella and Boyfriend. Both were primarily released in Europe but Cinderella was popular in Korea. In Europe Sweetbox promoted the single by performing at various shows and events. Sweetbox performed For The Lonely at The Dome 17 and Boyfriend at The Dome 19 and Ringfest in Germany.
Because of the success of the album in Japan, Sweetbox toured Japan in June and July 2001.
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Jade
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A New Music Direction
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After the success of the Classified album, Jade and Geo returned to the studio. The album that was subsequently released was titled Jade, because it was a more personal and deeper look into Jade's soul. The album also stood apart from its predecessor because it used fewer classical themes
and used more Asian sounds and instruments, reflecting Jade's Filipino heritage. In autumn 2002 the album was released in Japan, with its single being Read My Mind, a ballad with classical themes. Sweetbox visited Japan to promote the album and several remixes to Read My Mind were released,
including dance and holiday remixes. The album eventually reached Gold status in Japan. In early 2003 Sweetbox began to promote in Europe with the single Here On My Own, a ballad with rock and Asian sounds. The single was performed at The Dome 25 and BRAVO Supershow. Sweetbox also performed the
song One Kiss at VIVA in Germany. Despite this, however, the album was never released in Europe, and the album was re-released in Japan, titled Jade Silver Edition. This version featured acoustic versions of the songs, remixes, and a DVD with music videos. This was promoted with the single Unforgiven.
To further promote the album, Sweetbox returned to Japan with a new tour, called the JADE Tour, during April and May
2003. After this, Jade and Geo returned to the studio, while the Jade album was later released in Taiwan in August of 2003.
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Jade from sweetbox & Adagio
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meet FINAL FANTASY X-2
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Also in 2003, Jade was asked to sing the theme songs for the video game, Final Fantasy X-2. These versions were used for the international versions of the game, and also opened the way for many new fans. In 2004 these songs were released on Sweetbox's new album, called Adagio. This album returned to using several classical themes and had a more hip hop and
urban feel than the previous albums. The album was first released in Japan, with the main single, Life Is Cool, a pop-electronic song sampling Pachelbel's Canon in D. The album's second single was Somewhere, another pop song featuring Bach and Gounod's Ave Maria. Sweetbox promoted the album with a tour, called the Testimony Tour, in February and March 2004.
In Europe the album was released online on Sweetbox's webshop.
In Korea at this time, Sweetbox was making a come-back. The singles Don't Push Me and Life Is cool were released for downloading online and gradually gained radio airplay. In July 2004, the albums Jade and Adagio were released, both peaking at the top of the charts in Korea. The Jade album eventually reached Gold status, and Adagio reached platinum status.
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After The Lights & 13 Chapters
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Another direction
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In autumn 2004, Sweetbox released two albums: 13 Chapters and After The Lights. After The Lights featured all new songs, including Christmas songs, and was released in Japan, with its single being After The Lights. 13 Chapters was released in Europe and featured several new songs plus older songs from the Adagio album. Its singles were Life Is Cool, This Christmas,
More Than Love, and Killing Me DJ. The Adagio album was also released in Taiwan at this time, with Life Is Cool also being its single. Sweetbox also performed the After The Lights Tour, which held several shows in Japan and one in Korea. 13 Chapters was eventually released in Taiwan also in February 2005.
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10th Anniversary of sweetbox
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The Greatest Hits
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Also in February 2005, Sweetbox released another album, The Greatest Hits, commemorating 10 years of Sweetbox. Sweetbox released a new version of Everything's Gonna Be Alright, called Everything's Gonna Be Alright -Reborn-, with more rock themes and different lyrics. The album eventually reached platinum status. In Europe, Korea, and Taiwan, the album Best Of 1995-2005 was
released and went to the top of charts in Korea and Taiwan, winning double platinum status in Korea. Later in 2005, the After The Lights album was released in Korea, and re-released with Christmas songs. In Europe, Sweetbox released Raw Treasures: Vol. #1, an album consisting of demo versions of old songs and previously unreleased songs.
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Addicted & Beyond
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Continuing Success
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In December 2005 and January 2006, Sweetbox had another live tour, called the 10th Anniversary Tour in Japan, and the Bold & Delicious Tour in Korea. With the majority of the songs being new, the concerts gave a taste of what was to come. What was to come was a new album, called Addicted. This album featured classical themes and dance-electric songs.
The album was released in Japan in March 2006, in Korea in April 2006, and Europe in July 2006. The singles from the album were Addicted and Here Comes The Sun, both featuring classical themes. Sweetbox promoted this album by visiting Japan and Korea in spring 2006 and performing at events. Sweetbox also has its up-coming tour in Japan and Korea in August and September 2006.
In Japan, the Live, featuring live tracks and bonuses, and Best Of 12" Collection, featuring remixes from vinyls, were released in August 2006, and a few months later, both were released in South Korea as well.Addicted achieved a moderate success in Japan, and for the first time since 2001, Jade was invited to a japanese TV show "Music Fair", on 21st March, where she performed Addicted.
And the album did pretty well on a number of radio and TV charts.In South Korea, Addicted was a huge hit, Jade got a Digital Award, and even sang ABBA's "The Winner Takes It All", which was a theme song for Korean football World Cup team, and it was released on both "Voices Of World Cup" and the european version of the sweetbox album.Jade was featured in MTVK TRL, and she held a mini
concert, which DOSIRAK organized, where she performed the piano versions of some of the new songs.She was also the guest star in a few other SBS shows. Later that year, the Addicted to Japan started, Jade had 3 dancers/back vocals from UK, and the show was pretty much different, as she changed costumes more than just once, and this time they had a string section backing them up.
The tour also included South Korea, and the show was similiar.
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Bittersweet Symphony
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Coming Out of the Box
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In early spring 2007, Jade did a duet song with a Korean pop singer Baek Ji Young, the song was called Crush and was produced by Geo, and it featured a classical tune.
Later on, Sony BMG released The Greatest Hits in S.Korea, a 3CD compilation with 4th disc being available as Digital Download only. Then the news of Jade starting solo
came, and her first mini album was titled "Out Of The Box" was released in October 2007, in 2 versions, the one with the DVD had the
promotional video for "Just Another Day", Jade Valerie's Official Web Site was opened a month before the release. However the album barely sold around 5000 copies in Japan,
and it barely made it to Top 30 of weekly Oricon Charts, while it was in Top 10 of the International ones, mostly due to the lack of promotion by the new record label, UNIVERSAL Japan.
The new full length album Bittersweet Symphony was announced to be released on 12/12. AVEX announced that they're releasing a Complete Best of Sweetbox, and releasing it the same day.
The Jade Valerie newsletter announced that Jade is off to Africa to help a friend, and so the album was postponed. Complete Best did pretty well on the charts, selling more than 15000 in the first week, and it even topped the
international charts in the 2nd week. So far it sold more than 130 000 copies. As for the sweetbox, Heiko Schmidt announced on the official sweetbox web site, that he had found a new singer and that the new album will be released in 2008, titled "The Next Generation".
This was were this site and sweetbox parted, as we have decided to keep watching over Jade & GEO. The first (full-length) album under the name of Jade Valerie was released on 3rd March 2008, title "Bittersweet Symphony", and Jade spent most of the days promoting in Japan.
There was a number of HMV instore performances and cd signings, but she also did a number of interviews. After that Jade went to South Korea to promote the new digital single, "Just Another Day" and the upcoming "Out of the Box" album which is due to release on April 22nd, 2008 (by Sony BMG Korea). The album is actually a mixture of the previously released two albums in Japan, but contains 14
tracks in total, which means that some of the tracks were taken of the album. None of the releases had as much success as her previous sweetbox albums did, even though Just Another Day did well in Korea.
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ETERNITY 8
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The Rebirth
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During the last few months of 2008, Jade has stated in one of her video blogs that 2009 might bring two new studio albums.
Later on 25th March a MYSPACE page of ETERNITY 8 (infinity) has been opened featuring 2 songs with the well known sweetbox sound - Wonderful World and I Will.
Soon the AVEX's website opened and along came the Official Jade Valerie newsletter. AVEX wanted to bring the old sweetbox back so they approched Jade and Geo with the idea to create an album which will sample the classical pieces combining them with electro pop, urban, dance etc. The new album, titled Eternity, was scheduled for a release in early June 2009. It was well recieved among the fans and many claimed it was a new incarnation of Adagio, which is still considered the best album Jade and Geo produced. Even though it fell off over-all Oricon charts after only 3 weeks spent in top 300, it debuted in top 30. A digital single Love was released prior to the release of the album, but other than a few magazine interviews and a fashion store tie-in not much was done to promote the release. A month later, Jade and Geo went to Japan to finally do some promotion. The Korean release of the album has been mentioned and it is known it will have a new track. |
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