Sabrina

Sabrina (Norma Sabrina Salerno), also known as Sabrina Salerno, is an Italian singer, model, actress, TV hostess and record producer. During her career, she has sold over 20 million records, with several hits, and 9 Top 20 singles in Italy, including one number-one. She has won a World Music Award. After winning a beauty contest in region Liguria, Sabrina started modelling, and in 1984 made her television debut in the Italian prime time show Premiatissima on Canale 5. The following year, her debut single “Sexy Girl”, sung in English, was released. Produced by Claudio Cecchetto/Joseph Paduano, it became a top 20 hit in her native Italy as well as in Germany.

In late 1987, she released her first album, Sabrina, which was entirely sung in English. In addition to “Sexy Girl”, the album included Sabrina’s international top five hit “Boys (Summertime Love)” (#1 in France, Switzerland and Spain, #3 in the UK Singles Chart) which has sold more than 1.5 million copies to date worldwide, and “Hot Girl”, a top 20 hit in some European countries. In 1988, Sabrina received “The Best European Singer” award during the Festivalbar event, and enjoyed another European-wide summer hit with the single “All of Me (Boy Oh Boy)” (produced by Stock, Aitken & Waterman). Later in that year, her second album, Super Sabrina, was released, and she established herself as a European sex symbol thanks to the raunchy videos that accompanied hits such as “My Chico” (#1 in Italy) and “Like a Yo-Yo” (produced by Giorgio Moroder). The latter became the TV theme of Odiens, a very popular Italian Saturday prime time TV show, in which Sabrina also starred.

 

Thanks to the success of the albums and her sexy image, she was invited to perform in several European TV shows and concerts such as the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1988. Another famous performance was in 1989 at the Olympic Stadium in Moscow, where fifty-thousand people gathered over three days to enjoy Sabrina’s show and music. In 1989, she starred in the Italian movie Fratelli d’Italia directed by Neri Parenti, with actors such as Christian De Sica, Jerry Cala, Massimo Boldi, and released a remix album called Super Remix, as well as a new single, “Gringo”

 

A brand new single, “Cover Model”, was released in France and Italy with only limited success. Sabrina parted ways with her label and management, a decision that led to a four-years hiatus in her career. In 1995 she was able to come back to show business, co-hosting some Italian TV shows and releasing with an independent label two new singles, “Rockawillie” and “Angel Boy”, which were minor hits in Italy and Scandinavian countries.

 

 

In 1996 she established her own recording studio in Treviso with her then-husband Enrico Monti and released her first Italian language album, Maschio Dove Sei in which she collaborated with Massimo Riva (Vasco Rossi’s guitarist and longtime friend), who added a more mature pop/rock influence to Sabrina’s music. The album and its two singles, “Fatta e Rifatta” and the title-track “Maschio Dove Sei”, were surprisingly acclaimed by the critics, but turned out a commercial failure due to a lack of promotion and distribution.

 

 

In 1999, Sabrina released a new album, A Flower’s Broken, in Italy and Spain but, although an early curiosity was evoked by the music video accompanying the new single “I Love You”, both the album and the single were unsuccessful. She was a guest on the British TV show Eurotrash where she performed her new single “I Love You”. The album’s music label RTI Music was being sold (at the same time of the album’s release), and all marketing and promotion was stopped.

 

Discography:

1987 Sabrina
1988 Something Special
1988 Super Sabrina
1990 Super Remix
1991 Over the Pop
1996 Maschio Dove Sei
1999 A Flower’s Broken
2008 Erase/Rewind Official Remix

Source: Wikipedia.org