Amy Marshall

Amy Marshall (born July 22, 1983) is an American singer and songwriter. First marketed as a piano pop singer-songwriter, Amy has since experimented in many different genres including hard rock and electropop.

She had become widely known for her strong promotional efforts in 2005 when the media labeled her "the hardest working woman in music", resulting in a massive-selling debut album and a string of moderately successful singles. The success carried over into the next year when her album Peculiar Secret went on to be one of the best-selling albums of 2006, yielding her first #1/first gold single, "I Screwed It Up".

In the UK alone, Amy has sold over 2 million singles and 3 million albums. Her greatest success to date is her third album Morbid Lullabies, which was the Christmas #1 album of 2007 and featured her two biggest selling singles "Close My Eyes Forever" and "I Lived For The Day".

Amy released her greatest hits album, The Breast Of Amy Marshall, on February 15, 2010, followed a week later by its lead single "Game Over", a collaboration with Romo, with both releases hitting #1.

Amy's fifth studio album Broken Angel, described as her most personal yet and moving to a pure pop sound, will be released on October 26, 2011. Its lead single, "Best Friends Forever", was released October 17, 2011 and became Amy's third #1 single.

Early life
Marshall was born in Stony Brook, New York. She had taken interest in music as a young child, when her parents bought her a toy piano for her fourth birthday. However it wasn't until her young teens when she discovered popular music for the first time that she decided she wanted to take up singing as a possible career. After taking part in drama classes in middle school and high school, she found she needed more work done to improve her voice, so she hired a vocal coach to help improve her voice.

By the time she was sixteen, she was trained so that she couldn't miss a key. At that point she expressed interest in taking piano and guitar lessons, aiming to take a mature direction with her sound; eventually she had lessons paid for her as a gift for her seventeenth birthday. Marshall was described by her guitar teacher as "professional" when he first heard her vocal skills, and thought she would make out well as a headlining act on the local club scene. He asked a friend of his who was a manager at a local bar if Marshall could perform, and though hesitant at first, he accepted - after hearing her give a vocal sample over the phone.

Career beginnings and first record deal
The result of Marshall's live debut was a success and by the end of 2001 she had performed in over 75 small venues in the New York City and Long Island areas. However, Amy's success was short-lived. In the summer of 2003, she had gambled on her finances, spending more than she actually had. She was deeply in debt by the end of the year, and the money she made from the local performances was not enough to pay the bills and keep her alive at the same time. So she decided to take an even bigger gamble: record a demo album and show it to major record labels.

The demo CD was finished in February 2004, but management conflicts delayed success in Amy's goal. She ended up signing with her current management team in August, and they opted for UK labels to hear her material first, believing success internationally could help her break through more easily at home. It worked - the UK-based label Baa.Music signed her that October, and months later, Marshall would finally break through in both the North American and international markets.

November 2004-August 2005: The Amy Marshall era
Soon after Marshall was signed, her management aimed to get her material out as soon as possible, hoping she would become a sleeper hit with the buying public. That idea, however, brought about negative results. The first single, "Fading Into Nowhere", debuted at a mere #27 in the UK (though it climbed to a new peak of #21 the week after) and the release of her debut album was delayed. However, she would go on to distance herself from the disappointments with its follow-up, "Immature". Based on true experiences Amy went through in high school, many preteens and teens found the subject matter of the song and its accompanying music video relatable, and the praise for the single, along with promotional efforts much better than her last, helped the single debut at #8. In spite of a lack of promotion on the most crucial week of release, the album Amy Marshall debuted on the album charts at #8.

The third single, and the first released with Baa.Music split into two labels, Mystic Inc. and Visionary (with Amy moving to the latter label), was "Don't Turn Your Back". Written by Esmeralda Dimuzio, the single was widely regarded as the fan favorite from the album, and taking the fans' advice proved rewarding when it debuted at #7, above CeCe Winston, Jon Farley, and Sophie Ramone. Amy was growing to be a force to be reckoned with at this point, but what she was missing was a top 3 single to brag about. She earned that two months later with "No One/Mood Swing", which gave her her best first-week sales on the singles chart to date and helped the album reach a top 5 position and platinum sales. However, the follow-up single, "It Must Be Love" (featuring Charlie C) and a re-release of the album failed to gain the same momentum.

December 2005-January 2007: The Peculiar Secret Era
After she closed the Amy Marshall era, she promised early in the next year she would release "her best material yet". That came in the form of the album Peculiar Secret, heavier on rock influences than mellow piano-pop. A jury of five anonymous acts helped decide the track listing for the album, as well as its first single, "Teen Queens & iPod Dreams". Written and produced by Marshall herself, fans thought it was her best single yet, and she decided to make it so by giving them her biggest promotional campaign. The single did reach the top 5, debuting and peaking at #3 and becoming her first single to spend three weeks inside the top 10, though sales were considerably lower due to a sales slump. In spite of that, Marshall was thrilled to see the Peculiar Secret album go in at #2 in its first week.

The new album spit out hit single after hit single. The follow-up, "Fake Smiles From Hollywood", brought her back to the piano pop of the first album while keeping with the rock influence of the second, and took a risk with a campaign against Hollywood, working to her favor when the song hit #2. "Modest Machine/Love Is A Battlefield", released against Buffi's comeback, was a moderately successful single. "I Screwed It Up", however, ended the era with a bang when it became Amy's first #1 single.

October 2007-November 2008: Morbid Lullabies
Marshall originally shot for an early 2008 release for her upcoming third project, but the success of "I Screwed It Up" pushed the tentative release date up a bit further. Amy refused to leak any details about the project, which she stated would have a darker tone than the previous two efforts, while she was on her break in her home state of New York. She returned to the UK in July to meet with label bosses and discuss the status of the project; following a brief period of label politics, they finally met in mid-August 2007, but they felt the material was "too harsh and morose" and asked for Amy to tone down some songs and scrap others altogether, fearing she would alienate fans of her more commercial material.

She returned to the studio to work on new songs for the album with a number of collaborators, including Damned, Innocent, Helene Schneider, and Ashley Esterwood. The album, Morbid Lullabies, was released December 3. The album was led by Amy's first single release in almost a year, "Close My Eyes Forever", a collaboration with Esmeralda Dimuzio, which served as the leadoff for both Morbid Lullabies and Essie's greatest hits album. The single was released November 26 and reached #3, matching the peak of Amy's previous lead single while becoming Esmeralda's biggest hit in almost two years. It soon became Amy's best-selling to date, selling over 300,000 copies since its release. The following week, Morbid Lullabies entered at #2 on albums, just behind Esmeralda's greatest hits album, and the week after, climbed to #1, holding on the next week to become the Christmas #1 album (though it was met with some negative reaction).

The second single from the album, "Smiles Are Out Of Style", was released March 10, 2008 and charted at #5, and despite not reaching the top 3, became one of her most successful singles. The third single "I Lived For The Day", one of two songs on the album written by Innocent, was released July 14, and despite what was probably her lowest profile campaign yet, the single charted at #2 in its first week on physicals, upsetting front-runners Sleazy Sisters.

Morbid Lullabies was reissued on September 1st, containing a collaboration with Horrorfilm Horizon on "Running With Scissors". The song was released as a single the week before, reaching #4 on the singles charts. One year to the week since the release of "Close My Eyes Forever", Amy released the fifth and final single, "Painkiller", remixed by Xenomania for single release and her first single with Ensemble, in November 2008, reaching #7.

May 2009-February 2010: Reincarnation and Greatest Hits
After wrapping up the Morbid Lullabies era, Amy kept a lower profile in the media while she worked on her fourth album, but she came out to participate in the SAVE URAPS telethon and charity single "Play The Game" in March 2009.

Reversing course following the darker sound of Morbid Lullabies, Amy decided to follow on her experimentation with electropop by recording a full-length pop and dance album. Amy's fourth studio album Reincarnation contains more of a pop influence than before, and to help perfect her transformation, Amy sought songwriting and production assistance from the likes Elice Claire, China, Twisted Disco and Shell Ruin, as well as Romo, who helped co-write and/or co-produce half of the album's songs.

Reincarnation was released July 6, 2009, along with its lead single "Bang!", featuring Alesha and co-written with Alesha and Romo. The single reached #2 in a heated chart battle with former collaborator Esmeralda Dimuzio, while the album became her second #1 and first #1 debut.

The second single, "Why I Drink", was released September 7, 2009. The era saw her split with Katrina, adopt a pet monkey, and become a radio DJ only to be fired for shameless self-promotion. "Why I Drink" also reached #2 upon its first week, coming second only to Indigo Peak, but sold considerably lower than "Bang!".

The album's closing single "The Good Girl", penned by Shell Ruin and released on the day after her death, became Amy's least successful single since 2005's "It Must Be Love", entering at #9 and selling just under 100,000 copies. Consequently, Amy canceled the release of the Twisted Disco-penned "This Is My Church" as a fourth single, and Reincarnation failed to reach diamond status.

Amy returned months later to announce a collaboration with Romo, "Game Over", and a new greatest hits album, The Breast Of Amy Marshall. Both releases hit stores in mid-February and hit #1 on the charts.

August 2011-present: Broken Angel
Amy announced she would take a hiatus following the charting of "Game Over!" She planned to mark her return in early 2011 with the Romo-penned "Black Widow Sting" but several factors led to the release being canceled. It did, however, manage to reach #20 on the download charts. The song later found greater success when it was covered by Veronica Nightshade.

In August 2011, Amy announced she would return with a new single, "Best Friends Forever", which was released on October 17, 2011. The single led off her fifth studio album, Broken Angel, released on October 24, 2011. The album is described as her most personal record to date and returning her to a pure pop sound.

"Best Friends Forever" became Amy's third #1 single, selling 147,621 copies in its first week, earning the highest first week sales of her career as well as the second biggest sales week of the year, topped only by MIDNIGHT's "Money Equals Love", which debuted at #1 with sales of 183,727 copies.

Controversy
Marshall has been plagued with controversy throughout her career, and has had a number of noteworthy negative events. In December 2004, she engaged in a verbal fight with many other acts during the 2004 Christmas Chart Show regarding the chart position for a Band Of Boyz single. Early 2005 saw Marshall constantly fighting with pop group GirlSound, especially during Urapopstar Awards 9 and URAPS Rate 7. However, these fights were nothing compared to her infamous heart attack following the Shit Awards.

She has a reputation for being egotistical, at one point praising "It Must Be Love" as a #1 contender just because Charlie C was on the single. She also has outspoken views on many aspects of the music industry, and has even went as far to publicly criticize her own management.

More recently, she has been involved in drug scandals and was arrested for drunk driving (ironically enough, shortly after claiming she would stay sober for the sake of her single release). Her former friend and collaborator, Esmeralda Dimuzio, was too involved in trying to change Amy, and their once-strong bond eventually fell apart. They have since made up, on occasion joining each other live to perform "Close My Eyes Forever". In addition, Esmeralda appeared in Amy's video for "Why I Drink" and the two collaborated again on the song "The Seventh Sin" for Esmeralda's album Inside.

Personal relationships
At the height of their controversy, Marshall was dating Yori N. of Band Of Boyz. In April 2005, she had been engaged to Tim Post of the band Bonnie's Loopholes, to whom she had been attracted to after she worked as a talent scout for the band's Bed and Breakfast Bar. She broke off the engagement in January 2006 and began dating Jeff Hewitt, a cameraman who worked on the set of the video for "Teen Queens & iPod Dreams", but Hewitt admitted he was gay and not interested in Marshall. A month later, she appeared on the celebrity dating show Thrill Me, I'm Famous! where she was set up on a date with pop paedo Boris, which ended with a ditch-date.

In October 2006, she began pursuing singer-songwriter Tyler Wilson, and tried to grab his attention - and abandon his homosexuality - with extravagant stunts just to get him to date her. But their friendship crashed down once Amy decided to support Naomi's "Making Friends With Enemies" for #1 over Tyler's "It's Cool" - which Marshall even appeared in the video for - when they were released together on January 15, 2007. She had been unaware that it hurt Tyler's feelings until she discovered she was declined an invitation to his 27th birthday party.

Amy identified herself as bisexual after a video leaked of herself and Horrorfilm Horizon member Katrina Regalna imitating the infamous "2 Girls 1 Cup" video. The couple briefly became tabloid fodder in late January 2008 until they split up soon after. Later on, rumors circulated she was pregnant with Carl Reeves' child, but a paternity test later revealed that somehow Katrina was the father. In mid-March 2008, Amy announced she got back together with Katrina, and the couple got married in a quick ceremony in Paris on May 21, 2008. Five days later, Amy gave birth to a baby girl, Katramy (Katrina + Amy). Amy and Katrina's relationship was threatened in August 2008 when it was reported Amy was dating a Bronxite named Sebastian Rossi. Worried she would be "dumped for a fatass", Katrina convinced Amy to break up with Sebastian by sending nude pictures of herself to her cell phone.

Amy and Katrina split in August 2009.

Romo credited Amy for giving her musical career a start, because she started as a backup singer for one of Amy's early tours. When Romo became a #1-selling artist, she returned the favor to Amy by writing half of her Reincarnation album. They have since collaborated in other endeavors, including a collaborative single, a one-off co-headlining 3D concert, and a movie based on the concert.

Discography
Main article: Amy Marshall discography

Albums
2005: Amy Marshall 2006: Peculiar Secret 2007: Morbid Lullabies 2009: Reincarnation 2010: The Breast Of Amy Marshall 2011: Broken Angel