Lara Fabian - No Big Deal

Something slightly slower for you today, just to show that I can love a ballad too!

Lara Fabian was born on January 9, 1970 in Etterbeek, near Brussels in Belgium. She first appeared on our TV screens in 1988, when she represented Luxembourg at the Eurovision Song Contest with the song "Croire", coming a respectable 4th, the year Céline Dion won for Switzerland. This paved the way for her to release her debut album "Lara Fabian" in 1991 which went on to sell over 100,000 copies around the world, and was followed by successes with other French language albums including "Carpe Diem" in 1994, "Pure" in 1997, "Nue" in 2001 and "En Toute Intimité" in 2003. Her latest French release "9" (as it is her 9th French album release including a few live albums) was released earlier this year.

Lara was also the voice of Esmerelda in the French version of "The Hunchback of Notre Dame", and her song even appeared on the English language version of the soundtrack, and she also appeared on the soundtracks for other films such as "De-Lovely" and "AI: Artificial Intellegence".

Lara continues to be popular all over the French language world, and has her own wax model in the Grévin Wax Museum, and was also named "Revalation Of The Year" by Paris Match magazine in 1998.

With having such massive success, Lara signed a recording contract with Sony in 2000, and started recording her debut English language album. Released in 2000, "Lara Fabian" was another success and Lara had hits with "I Will Love Again" (written by the same guys as Cher's "Believe") and "I Am Who I Am". "I Will Love Again" was even released in the UK, but with poor promotion, it could only get to #63 in October 2000.

Lara's second English album "A Wonderful Life" was released in 2004, and the lead single from the album was "No Big Deal" and it was co-written by Lara herself and Gary Barlow of Take That fame. It's very typical of Lara in style, and the album went on to be another success for her.

Lara may not be as well known as Céline in the English language world, but over in France and Canada, her star burns just as bright...