Thursday 16 May 2013

Emilia 'Big Big World'

Chart Peak: 5

YouTube

Emilia was born twenty years ago to a Swedish mother and an Ethiopian father and was educated at the esteemed Adolf Fredniks music school in Stockholm... As well as having a massive No.5 UK hit with 'Big Big World', she is busy studying economic history at university!
It's not exactly record-breaking, but it's still remarkable that after charting with this single over Christmas 1998, she had to wait until early 2013 to enter the UK album chart (as Emilia Mitiku - she's also sometimes credited as Emilia Ryberg). By now she seems to have developed into a decent jazz-pop singer, but in the late 90s she was, as I think David Quantick called her in scathing Q review, "A big, big girl with a stupid, stupid voice". He also went on to call it an insult to the memory of Abba that this track was recorded at their Polar Studios; the connection being apparently that she was discovered by the son of their manager.

After all these years, I don't hate this track as much as I did at the time, and in fact I can't fully understand why I did then. I still dislike it though, it has every hallmark of a record trying too hard to be winsome and cutesy. That's not a style that ever appealed to me and I don't think it's even done especially well here, it seems a bit too half-baked somehow. I don't know why she turns into a dog at the end of the video either.

Available on: I Am Relaxed

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