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The sound of summer
Posted at 11:17 AM, 19 July 2008 -

Gabriella Cilmi is on the cover of today's The Independent Magazine. "Sweet About Me", which is still sitting in the UK top 10, is dubbed as "the sound of the summer". Brian Higgins says that she has signed a five-album deal with Island Records and that he expects every one to be a "smash hit".

Higgins is interviewed about meeting Gabriella and the process of transforming her into the artist she is now: "I came to meet her in Australia to see if we could get on creatively. At that stage, she had a very wild, untamed voice, and I loved it. But I wanted to see whether there was some songwriting talent to back it up. Fortunately, there was."

Over three years they would meet four times a year on songwriting and recording sessions in Los Angeles, New York and London. Gabriella's determination at first was to become a rock chic, while Higgins was trying to bring out her pop sensibility.

"Let's face it," he says, "a 14-year-old girl trying to sound like Led Zeppelin is always going to look ridiculous. That said, you should hear her version of 'Whole Lotta Love', which she plays live and which is amazing, but for me Gabby works best as a pop singer, and a very good one at that. Her voice is like nobody else's."

Higgins says that Gabriella is "remarkably self-analytical": "'Sweet About Me' took a long time until it became the hit single it deserves to be, and in that time I just watched her become increasingly self-analytical, determined to raise her game, to become a better live performer, to really dig in and give her very best. I've not seen that in many artists, especially such young ones, but Gabby has a champion mentality. And it's this that is going to turn her into a major star. We've signed her to a five-album deal at Island. I confidently expect every one to be a smash hit."


Links:
- article in The Independent
- more about Gabriella Cilmi
- more about "Sweet About Me"
- Gabriella performing Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love" live

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