Gina G
Spending my teenage years deciding whether I preferred the Spice Girls of Gina G was always throwing me into turmoil as I couldn’t decide whether Wannabe or Ooh Aah…Just A Little Bit was the song of the summer.
Fair enough, in hindsight I can see that the real success was always going to go the Spice Girls whilst they left Gina G standing solo in the dust. However, the woman I thought was a one hit wonder was actually more successful than you might imagine!
Born Gina Mary Gardiner on 3 August 1970 in Brisbane, Queensland (That’s Australia for the un-geographically apt of us!) her music career began back in 1990, starting off as a DJ in Melbourne.
Nineties Success
However, she only really got into her musical stride as she became the lead singer of Australian popstars Bass Culture back in 1992; they even scored a top 20 hit on the charts with their single Love The Life, a song that she also wrote.
However, it was only when she left the group in 1993 that she found real success as a solo artist in Britain. Her profile grew overnight when she was selected by producer Jonathan King to represent the United Kingdom in the 1996 Eurovision Song Contest.
Unsurprisingly we didn’t win, despite having the best song of the competition (bloody political voting!) yet her song, Ooh Aah... Just A Little Bit, went to number one on the UK singles chart in the week of the contest.
Although her follow up singles might slip any 90’s music fans’ mind, she did actually have another top ten hit in the form of I Belong To You and later that year she also released Song For Solo 2.
In the late 1997, she released the songs "Ti Amo", "Gimme Some Love", "Everytime I Fall", and the album's title track, Fresh!, all of which charted and were included on her best-selling debut album, whose cover art featured her whole body covered in chocolate.
After the successful singles, she disappeared from the big stage for several years as - typical with popstars at the minute - a long lawsuit against a former manager took all her energy, and despite the fact that a lot of new music was recorded, she did not make any releases for a while.
Millennium Years
In 2000 Gina recorded some more tracks, which included a new version of Ooh Aah…Just A Little Bit and a cover of These Boots Are Made For Walking which was released as a single but failed to attract any attention from the public.
After this quiet period, Gina G returned to the spotlight in March 2003, when she took part in the reality television show Reborn in the USA, alongside the likes of Sonia, Michelle Gayle, Tony Hadley, Peter Cox and Elkie Brooks and despite winning the first show, she got the least votes in the next show, and went up for the British public's vote which she lost, and was eliminated.
In early 2005, Gina ‘want back to what she was good at’ and once again tried to represent United Kingdom at the Eurovision Song Contest, however, clearly time hadn’t done her any favours and she ended up finishing 5th out of 5 entries on the preselection program, with her song "Flash Back."
However, it must have been difficult for her taking on more modern acts such as Javine and Katie Price (Jordan)
In August 2005, Gina released the long awaited follow up to her debut album Get Up & Dance to good reviews. However the album was only available through her website with the majority of first orders being personally signed by Gina herself.
Today
Gina has now taken the reigns when it comes to recording and performing and has set up her own record label called Stuntgirl with her future releases being distributed through Universal Records.
Based in LA, she now records in her own studio in LA as well as London. 2006 sees Gina setting up a comeback of sorts with her new dance tune Tonight's The Night doing the rounds in the clubs and scoring pretty well on the club charts too (it went straight into the commercial dance chart at number 2). It was released on October 2nd 2006 through download and larger music stores.
The latest single only made number 57 in the UK singles chart, but all is not lost, as Gina has something else to focus her energy and attention on as she is pregnant with her second child, and has (sensibly) decided to put her career plans on hold.
My advice to Gina would be that cheesy pop is sometimes better left in the Nineties, and if she really craves the spotlight that much, there is always I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here!
FemaleFirst - Ruth Harrison