Vanilla Ninja - Heartless

Any fan of the Eurovision Song Contest will know this band, as they represented Switzerland in the 2005 contest, coming a respectable 8th - despite hailing from Estonia!

The original line-up of the band was Maarja Kivi, Lenna Kuurmaa, Katrin Siska and Piret Järvis, and their first forage into music was when they appeared in Eurolaul 2003, the contest to choose Estonia's entry in the Eurovision. Despite gaining the most televotes for their song "Club King-Fu", the song was chosen by an international jury, and the song finished 9th out of 10 in the contest. Undeterred, the girls released their debut album "Vanilla Ninja" in Estonia with a mixture of Estonian and English language songs.

The girls' second album "Traces Of Sadness" was recorded in 2004 completely in English, and the girls began releasing music all over Europe - with particular success in the German speaking countries, where their first single "Tough Enough" became a huge hit. This was followed by "Club Kung-Fu", "Don't Go Too Fast", "Liar" and "When Indians Cry". Just before the release of the last single of their album, Maarja left the band due to falling pregnant, and she was quickly replaced by Triinu Kivilaan - who bore an uncanny resemblance to her!

The girls' third album was released in early 2005. Entitled "Blue Tattoo", the singles released included the title track, and "I Know", as well as their Eurovision song "Cool Vibes". At the Eurovision itself, the girls managed to get Switzerland's best result in the contest for 12 years!

After the contest, things went rather quiet from the band, with only a release of a Best Of at the end of the year. Around this time Triinu left the band, leaving the band as a three-piece, who have vowed to continue as a band. We'll see if 2006 can bring the band any more success, but they will forever be remembered as one of the more contemporary acts of Eurovision 2005...

"Heartless" was taken from "Traces Of Sadness" and is typical of their pop-rock style. An extended version appeared on the album as a bonus track, so maybe the track was touted as a single release at some point, but sadly, this never materialised...