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| Popcult | |
invader, just Duffy No first name but she's got a top album in the UK May 5, 2008
The name's Duffy, just Duffy, she's 23, from Wales, and in April she had the No. 1 album in Britain and Europe, "Rockferry." Duffy's retro "Rockferry" will be released in the U.S. next week, most likely putting her up there with the likes of fellow Brits Joss Stone and Amy Winehouse, whose troubled private life has made many headlines. Duffy becomes just the latest in this most recent wave of British singers with a unique take on American music, writing and performing songs that harken to a time past, and in that regard the wave is not unlike the earliest wave led by the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. Both found inspiration in music that was outside the mainstream rock 'n' roll of the time, earlier and earthier. What makes this new wave interesting is that it's mostly of women, and it's the first wave British of female singers to cross over in some years, observes Silvio Pietroluongo, associate director of charts for Billboard. The most famous perhaps was Dusty Springfield, who made it big in the 1960s with her British soul sound. Duffy, with her blond hair and big voice, has inevitably been compared to Springfield. Duffy joins Winehouse and Leona Lewis, who admittedly has a more modern soul sound, more pop with a bit of soul along the lines of Maria Carey or Whitney Houston. Lewis last month hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200, something that no British female singer had done since the mid-80s. After Duffy, Americans will likely be hearing a lot from Adele, another retro soul diva gathering force in the UK. “Duffy is part of a group of singers that are bringing sounds of the past back,” says Peter Robinson, editor of the British online magazine Popjustice.com. “Once one artist breaks through, they open the door for others.” Duffy, born Aimee Duffy, is from the tiny town of Nefyn (population 2,550) in North Wales, and spoke Welsh as her first language. In this she is like several of the other British singers. Stone has also said that her parents’ music influenced her sound. And Winehouse’s family was into jazz. Exactly who paved the way for this recent rise of British soul singers is a matter of debate, with some crediting American Norah Jones. It was late 2003 when these British singers really first came on the scene. That’s when Joss Stone's debut album “The Soul Sessions,” which came out in mid-September 2003, went multi-platinum. Then in October 2003, Amy Winehouse’s first album, “Frank,” was released. Whoever came first, there is certainly no question that Winehouse has been a massive influence. Her battle with drugs may be making the headlines these days, but the huge success of her recent album, "Back to Black," which was the best-selling album of 2007 in Britain, blew the genre wide open. “There is a genuine demand for it. Anyone who has bought that album would like to hear another album like it. The record companies all want to line up their own Amy,” says Robinson of Popjustice.com That could well be. Duffy released a single a couple of weeks ago, called "Mercy," which debuted on Billboard’s hot 100 last week at 87 and the Hot Digital Songs at No. 63. Says Billboard's Pietroluongo: “That’s pretty good for an artist without a lot of history to already be on that chart with airplay of just a few week.” Meanwhile, elsewhere in popcult, “Iron Man” became the first bona fide blockbuster this season, bringing in $100.8 million in ticket sales over the weekend. The romantic comedy “Made of Honor” was a distant No. 2 with $15.5 million at the box office.
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