Romo

Romo
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Romo in 2010
Background information
Born	June 16, 1985 (age 27)
Origin	Manchester, England
Genre	Alternative, Rock, Electropop
Years active	2005-present
Label	Elite (April 2008-April 2009) Ensemble (April 2009-June 2010) Saturdays (June 2010-September 2011) The Empire (September 2011-present)
Associated acts
Alesha, Amy Marshall, China, Indigo Peak

Jenna Jillian Romo, better known by her stage name Romo (born June 16, 1985) is a British singer and songwriter. Starting out as a touring backup singer from 2005 to 2007, Romo broke through on her own in 2008, gaining attention for taking on a philosophical tone on modern issues in her songs. Since then she has earned eight number one singles and four number one albums. She has sold over 6.5 million units in the United Kingdom alone since her debut.

Romo made a successful transition from alternative rock to electropop with her single "Schizo Pop", selling over 500,000 copies to become one of the fastest selling singles of 2008, ranking as the year's second biggest seller and earning a Urapopstar Award for Best Single. The song inspired her to create a concept album, POPSTAR: The Life & Times Of Belle Ball, detailing the pitfalls of pop superstardom. Upon its February 2009 release, the album was critically and commercially successful, debuting at #1 and selling over a million copies, as well as earning a Urapopstar Award nomination. After suffering from the critical failure of its sequel, POPSTAR 2: Belle After Death and failing to earn a #1 single from the album, Romo repeated the critical and commercial success of the original POPSTAR album with Romo, which won a Urapopstar Award for Best Album.

Romo's fifth album Emotional Pornography will be released October 1, 2012.

Early life

Romo was said to have been inspired to start taking up singing after performing in a skit for a talent show in middle school. That, she says, ultimately led to her performing at open mic nights at a number of small bars in the Manchester area, at many times lying about her age just to get in.

Romo's parents wanted to send her to college but she instead decided to use the money in her college savings to record a handful of demo recordings of songs she had written, in hopes that one day she could present them to record companies and launch a music career. As this caused some disagreements within her family, Romo has not talked to her parents since; however, evidence from some of her conversations with peers suggests she may have a continued relationship with them.

Career as a backup singer

In 2005, Romo answered an ad on Craigslist looking for touring backup singers. Thinking it would be a good way to build a resume, she auditioned for the job and beat out a number of applicants to go on tour with a number of well-known artists until she quit in 2007.

While working in the background for more established stars, she took up voice lessons, looked for opportunities to perform lead, and recorded a set of demos. Using her backup singing gig as a networking opportunity, she gave her demos to one of her clients to present to an A&R rep, but the response was negative and she decided to take some time off to rethink her career goals.

Music

Eve era

After putting the launch of her own music career on hold when an A&R rep didn't like her demo recordings, China, a close friend of Romo since high school, recommended she give music a second try, but instead of relying on other people, present her demos herself so that "the bigwigs can see the real deal for themselves". Romo took her advice, and much to her luck, she hit it off on the first try, impressing an A&R rep for Michael Jones Management. She was instantly signed, as the PR company took a gamble on her with the release of their first material in ten months coming from a then-unknown artist.

In March 2008, Romo signed a trial contract with Elite Records to release her debut single "Face For Rehab", an alternative rock song that took a philosophical approach to addressing the epidemic of teenage alcoholics. The single claimed that young girls like to go out and party all the time because they want to be like their friends, who themselves want to be like the celebrities who also go out and party all the time. Released on the first week of May 2008 against Arwyn Knight, who gave Romo a spot as an opening act on her tour despite her frequent put-downs of her label Wired and its management style, everyone expected Arwyn to come out on top. But Romo far outperformed Arwyn when their singles were initially released to downloads; the following week, "Face For Rehab" narrowly defeated Arwyn's "Stain Glass Window" in its first week on physicals to take the #1 spot. Nobody saw it coming - not even Romo herself.

Romo released her debut album Eve on July 21, 2008, which she described as a philosophical and psychological look at how far the female gender has come since the concept of original sin, a concept that inspired the album's title. It was followed by the second single "Fleeing The Ribbon Cutting Ceremony" the week after, July 28. "Fleeing", a song written in a poetic style about shame and the insignificance of existence, became Romo's second #1 single, while Eve debuted at #1 and stayed there for four weeks.

She took over Elite Records in August 2008 and has since made the label bigger by signing more acts though her efforts have been low-key at best.

Other contributions

Romo contributed a remix of the Sleazy Sisters' "New Attitude" to the 12" vinyl format of the single, and a cover of Alexis' "Asylum" to Indigo Peak's acoustic covers compilation Social Rehab. The Sleazies' single reached #1 on the singles charts and Social Rehab debuted at #4 on the album charts.

"Face For Rehab" appeared on the Elite Records compilation Elite Presents: Shut Up & Listen! which reached #6 on the album charts in the summer of 2008.

Popstar era

When promotion for the album ended, she stated if her career tanked beyond her current era, she "wouldn't mind selling out". Even though the single and album were successful, she found herself the target of harassment from people on the street. She finally understood why she was being harassed when she sat down one day and listened to her own album from start to finish, claiming it "made me want to puke". To clear her memory, she went out clubbing in London, inspired by the music playing and the people she met to come up with a pop record.

"Schizo Pop" was the first song Romo wrote for the second album, describing it as "a criticism of consumer culture". Putting down obsessive fans and overexposed celebrities, the single saw Romo's most aggressive promotional campaign to date and it paid off well as "Schizo Pop" became her third #1 single, selling over 500,000 copies since its release and helping it become the second biggest seller of 2008 and the second best female ROTY of 2008.

On December 15, 2008, Elite Records released a Christmas compilation album, Merry Fucking Christmas. The low-key effort was Romo's first attempt at reinvigorating the label she took over in the summer. She contributed an original song to the album entitled "Christmas Shopping", a song about fighting crowds for hot selling items during the holidays. The album peaked at #14 on the charts.

Romo's second album, POPSTAR: The Life & Times Of Belle Ball, is a concept album about a troubled pop singer named Belle Ball, who begins her career on a high and ends up self-destructing when her hard partying lifestyle gets her into trouble with the law and her friends and family. The album, which received overwhelming critical praise, was released on February 2, 2009; its second single "Nocturnal Emission" was released the week before and became Romo's fourth #1 single, selling over 80,000 copies in its first week and over 300,000 copies total. POPSTAR followed suit, debuting at #1 on the album charts with over 80,000 sold.

On March 2, Romo began her first headlining tour, Belle's Ball, a 21-date UK tour featuring support from China, Esmeralda Dimuzio, Elice Claire, and Phoenix Rising. While on tour, Romo began promotion for the album's third single, "The Carpet Didn't Bleed By Itself", released on April 6.

In the midst of all that, she established a nonprofit organization called SAVE URAPS, with its goal of keeping the Urapopstar servers running for as long as possible following a shutdown threat. SAVE URAPS held a star-studded telethon on March 21, 2009, two days following an actual shutdown of the site and forums. The all-star charity single "Play The Game", featuring contributions from over 40 Urapopstar acts, was released March 23 and reached #1 upon its release.

Romo received four nominations in Urapopstar Awards 16. She won two awards, Best Single for "Schizo Pop" and Best Promotion. In addition, she placed within the top 10 in URAPS Rate 12, ranking #8.

On April 20, 2009, Romo stepped down as owner of Elite Records and signed with Ensemble, recently taken over by Indigo Peak.

The final single from POPSTAR was Belle Ball/Covergirl, a collaboration with China, released June 22. The single, Romo's first collaboration and first double A-side, became her fifth #1 single upon its release. Both sides also reached #1 on the airplay charts, making it the first double A-sided single to achieve this feat.

Romo received two nominations at Urapopstar Awards 17, Best Album for POPSTAR: The Life & Times Of Belle Ball and Best Collaboration for "Belle Ball/Covergirl". The video for "Belle Ball" won Best Pop Video at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards, but her moment was ruined when Kanye West interrupted her speech to say that Elice Claire had one of the best videos of all time.

Other contributions

Romo co-wrote and features on a track on Alesha's new album Bigger Than God entitled "The Pretty Ones". The song also features China and Emily Henning. "The Pretty Ones" was released as the final single from Bigger Than God on September 21 and charted at #2.

She also wrote and produced Morris David Cat's single "Blind Date", which has since become Morris's highest selling solo single, and co-wrote and produced Amy Marshall's single "Bang!", both lead singles from the acts' fourth studio albums. Romo also co-starred in the videos for both singles. Amy's follow-up to "Bang!" was "Why I Drink", which she co-wrote and co-produced with Romo.

Crystal Barker released a cover of the album track "From Raggedy Ann To Rich Uncle Pennybags" as a B-side to her single "Compute", which went on to become her first #1.

Popstar 2 era

Romo's third album is a sequel to POPSTAR, entitled POPSTAR 2: Belle After Death. The album was released November 9, 2009, nine months after the original album, and became her third consecutive album to debut at #1, scoring her highest first-week album sales to date with first-week figures over 100,000. The lead single, "TITS-FM!", was released November 2, 2009, one year to the week of the release of her breakthrough single "Schizo Pop", and reached #2 on the singles charts. This marked the first time Romo released an album following the first, not second, single.

Darker in sound and theme but containing slight mainstream influences, the album is partially inspired by media coverage of the death of Michael Jackson, particularly on the ten-minute epic "Funeral". Speaking of Jackson, Romo also covered his song "Who Is It" for a tribute album, The King of Pop: A Tribute to HIStory.

Alesha and Shell Ruin, with Romo's backing, revived SAVE URAPS for a second run following additional issues involving server bandwidth on the Urapopstar site. The single "Hold Fire" was released October 12, with the telethon held October 10. Shockingly, Romo failed to appear at the second telethon, a major stab in the back to the organization.

Romo released the album's second single "Bait & Switch/Hell Is A Discotheque" on January 18, 2010, amidst a highly-publicized chart battle with Paulo Araujo. Though Paulo beat Romo to #1, "Bait & Switch/Hell Is A Discotheque" gave Romo her best first-week sales at the time.

Before Shell Ruin's death, Romo was slated to be the opening act on her Live At Last UK tour. Romo did pay tribute to Shell during her all-star tribute concert All That Glitters, performing "Deep Comatose" (segueing into an excerpt of Olivia Newton-John's "Physical") and "Dance On My Grave". To make up for the tour's inevitable cancellation, Romo pushed up the start date for her second headlining tour, Usurp The Throne, a 30-day UK tour serving as the sequel to Belle's Ball, featuring support from Logan Cross and The Warning. The tour features a break between sets with a tribute to Shell.

In February 2010, Romo briefly diverted from POPSTAR 2 promotion to release a collaboration with Amy Marshall, "Game Over". The collaboration appears on Amy's greatest hits album, The Breast Of Amy Marshall. To promote "Game Over!", Amy performed with Romo on select dates of her tour, and the pair agreed to co-headline a 3D tour to follow other singers' usage of 3D technology in the wake of the success of the film Avatar. "Game Over!" became Romo's sixth #1 single, as well as Amy's second and her first in over three years.

The third single off POPSTAR 2 is "Bathroom Entourage", considered a fan favorite and one of the album's most radio friendly tracks. It was commercially released on May 10, 2010 and charted at #4, becoming Romo's lowest charting release to date. She pointed to the charting as a reason to abandon the concept of her past two albums.

Romo era

Romo released her fourth album, Romo, on December 27, 2010. She said the album will be "a true introduction to who I really am" and will completely refocus her musical and lyrical direction, later saying that unlike the POPSTAR albums, Indigo Peak will have no involvement on any of the songs because the sound she developed with them was definitive of that era and she wanted her new material to be defined by a different direction. She also changed record labels when Ensemble Entertainment went bankrupt, signing with Saturdays Records.

On July 31, 2010, Romo announced the album's lead single will be "Music From Mars" and will be commercially released on October 11, 2010, pushing the date up ahead due to popular demand following a higher than expected placement in URAPS Rate; however, Saturdays Records pulled the release after her management worried they could not pull out a strong promotional campaign. "Music From Mars" was released on the same date as the album, and received its official premiere on October 31, 2010. Both the album and single have received positive reviews from critics and fans and reached #1 following their releases, becoming the first #1 album and single of 2011, respectively.

After multiple delays, Romo released of the album's second single "Piccadilly Circus" on May 2, 2011, a social critique about the role of advertising in people's lives and its music video depicts product placement in extreme terms, where corporate logos are embedded anywhere and everywhere possible. The single became Romo's eighth #1 of her career.

During this time, Romo also wrote songs for URAPS Idol: Second Chance winner Sienna Martinez and Australian dance-pop singer Veronica Nightshade; the latter's "Black Widow Sting" was released as a single June 2011 and reached the top 10.

After completing her third headlining tour Taking Back Music, Romo released the third single from the album, the protest song "Pandora Kills", on August 8, 2011. The single was released against Sandi Cohen and Ace Rejects; during the era, Romo repeatedly made fun of Sandi for her alleged involvement with the Illuminati and befriended Ace Rejects member and fellow Mancunian Kelly Dando. "Pandora Kills" was backed by a big-budget video depicting London in the moments before the city is destroyed in a series of natural disasters. The single charted at #3 upon its release, marking the first single from the era to miss #1, but managed to sell over 100,000 copies in its first week as a result of the close chart battle, Romo's first single to accomplish this feat.

Romo was named Best Album at Urapopstar Awards 20.

Emotional Pornography era

Romo was due to release an anthology album, The Canal Street Chronicles, in February 2012, but the release was canceled without explanation; however, one song from the unreleased collection, "Monster's Mask" (performed by Esmeralda Dimuzio) managed to reach #1.

In July 2012, Romo announced she would release her fifth album, Emotional Pornography, in September, preceded by a single called "Pretty White Girls". The single was abruptly pulled following the Aurora, Colorado movie theater shooting out of sensitivity for the victims, but on August 29, 2012, Romo announced she would follow through with the single release, saying the song is too strong not to be released as the album's lead single. "Pretty White Girls" and Emotional Pornography are scheduled for release on October 1.

Other ventures

Romo was one of the houseguests in Celebrity Big Brother in January 2009, competing against the likes of Jake, Alex Washington, and her friends China and Elice Claire. China became notorious during her stay for her erratic behavior, with Romo claiming that she tried to help China but she wouldn't cooperate. Maintaining her sanity by continuing to promote her single and album while in the house, Romo was considered a favorite to win, though she ended up placing fourth.

Personal life and controversy

See also: Romo feuds and rivalries

Romo has been close friends with China since high school, although their friendship briefly went sour when Romo got tired of walking China's dogs. The two have been seen together in public a number of times and they always turn to each other for career advice. Since China's ascension to superstardom in the later part of 2009, which overshadowed the release of Romo's third album, the pair's relationship hit shaky ground, peaking when remarks made by Romo caused Paulo Araujo to suffer a nervous breakdown. However, the two continue to remain close friends and associates.

Another close friend of Romo is Alesha, who also hails from her home city of Manchester. The two met while Alesha was touring for Buried Underneath; when Romo first broke through, rumors swirled that she was a lesbian when reports revealed she engaged in lesbian acts with Alesha during tour stops. Due to the fact both ladies hail from the same city, share similar influences in the worlds of music and fashion, and appear to make the same career transitions, Romo has often been referred to by media outlets as "the new Alesha". The pair have collaborated several times on stage and in the studio.

She strongly dislikes being forced to tone down her act to appeal to a mass audience, believing it's "not art". She remarked that American radio stations were "run by fucking prudes" when she learned that her single "Schizo Pop" was noticeably edited to appeal to US radio, and pondered why controversial chat show host Jonathan Ross is still on the air yet her video for "Nocturnal Emission" was banned due to "disturbing images". She also criticized VEVO for being "no different from MTV" when it comes to censorship, upon finding out her video for "Music From Mars" would face censorship due to the "threatening" appearances of people in costumes.

Similarly, she dislikes being around children. She purposely stirred up controversy when she appeared at a children's literacy event and gave an X-rated reading of Dr. Seuss's The Cat In The Hat so that people would be so mad her management wouldn't book her any more events involving children.

Romo is a fierce critic of URAPS Idol. She disliked the ninth series (though she did perform on one of the results shows) and viewed the year's talent as weak compared to the previous series. During the heats for URAPS Idol 10, Romo confessed she "threw up on her laptop" because she couldn't control her disgust over the uncharacteristically dreadful auditions, admitting she had to change channels four or five times just to make sure she was watching the right show. She also disliked the URAPS Idol: Second Chance series for its perception of "elevating D-listers to A-list status" (though the penultimate results show featured the live debut of her single "Music From Mars"). She does, however, show an appreciation for some of the show's most successful veterans, particularly Cleo Clarice, Genevere Johnson, Sienna Martinez, and Sleazy Sisters, the latter of which worked with Romo on a remix and a music video.

Proteges

Romo takes responsibility for bringing her longtime friend and mentor China to superstardom. As China was recovering from a massive PR disaster with the World War III fiasco, Romo informed China the most important thing she needs to do is stop taking everything said to her so seriously, saying that she encourages both her friends and enemies to take what she says to them lightly. When Romo decided to take a dramatic stylistic change, she invited China in the studio to perform backup on future singles "Schizo Pop" and "Belle Ball", and China later followed Romo's lead and took the same radical switch in direction. Similarly, both led their second album eras' single campaigns by showing off their personalities and pulling endless crazy stunts.

Romo has since looked to develop her own stars, beginning in early 2009 with Jenna Marie. The singer was signed to Elite (which Romo headed at the time) and recorded several demo songs for Romo, including the SAVE URAPS charity single "Play The Game" and what was to be her debut single, "You're My Pornography", but inactivity later forced Romo to drop her from the label. Recently, Romo unsuccessfully lobbied to have her friend Malisa Bonga, an independent alt-hip-hop singer and rapper, join the group Tiger Tiger.

She takes credit for revitalizing Esmeralda Dimuzio's career. The veteran popstar did not have a major solo hit since the peak of her career in 2005 as her musical efforts would later be overshadowed by personal issues. When Romo's tour promoters fired Mischa as a support act on her Belle's Ball tour, she invited Esmeralda to take her place, believing it would help introduce her to a new audience. The support slot, coupled with major promotional campaigns for her singles, helped bring about a resurgence in her popularity, as the single "False Hopes" and "Product Of The Past" became the best selling singles of her career. Romo's involvement in Esmeralda's career has continued, writing the lead track for her Monster's Mask EP, which became Esmeralda's 7th #1 single in March 2012.

Similarly, she revived Morris David Cat's career after a long hiatus. As his musical efforts were mostly overshadowed by intense criticism from his peers for being uninteresting, Romo's objective was to make him stand out with an exciting lead single. The result, "Blind Date", began a string of three consecutive top 5 singles from his Second Chance album and became his best selling solo single.

As a sign of appreciation for helping her get her foot in the door, Romo wrote half of Amy Marshall's Reincarnation album and was a guest on her single "Game Over!", which became her first to reach #1 in over three years.

Philanthropy

Romo, along with Amy Marshall, supported Operation Christmas Child in 2008, which aims to deliver shoeboxes filled with toys, school supplies, and hygiene products to children in impoverished nations.

In February 2009, Romo founded SAVE URAPS, an organization aimed in providing financial support to the music industry emulation game Urapopstar. The single "Play The Game" and charity telethon were huge successes under Romo's management. She folded the organization months later, only for it to be revived by Alesha and Shell Ruin in September 2009.

Throughout the promotion of "TITS-FM!", Romo supported various breast cancer organizations through donations and purchases of goods aimed at funding breast cancer research. Coincidentally, full time promotion for "TITS-FM!" commenced during Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

Romo was quoted as saying she donated "a generous amount" to the relief efforts in Haiti after the country was struck by a 7.0-magnitude earthquake in January 2010. A month later she gave money to Chile after it also experienced an earthquake, as well as to the state of Hawaii who were reported to experience one of the aftershocks. Despite her support of the relief efforts, she harshly criticized the wave of charity singles released to support such efforts.

Discography

Main article: Romo discography

Albums

2008: Eve
2009: POPSTAR: The Life & Times Of Belle Ball
2009: POPSTAR 2: Belle After Death
2010: Romo
2012: Emotional Pornography