This is someone who I thought I would feature because although she was never really an A-list pop star, she did have a decent amount of hits, and it’s interesting to look back at what it must’ve been like to be an up-and-coming singer on the scene in the early-2000s, around the time that the chart was beginning to be swamped by a lot of music talent show acts.
Amy Studt is a singer/songwriter from London (who coincidentally was born on the same day as my brother, but not the same year though). She was discovered by pop bigwig Simon Fuller, and there seemed to be a lot of work put into making some decent singles for her, and hoping that she’ll be the next big thing. In July 2002 her debut single “Just A Little Girl” was released.
It seems that the video for this was directed by Sophie Muller. Now you might remember that she was behind a lot of the highlights of Shakespear’s Sister’s career, and I presume that her services don’t come cheap. I noticed someone say that they got an American McGee’s Alice vibe off this video, and I can definitely see that. So when this reached no. 14, there was probably a little frustration.
Her second single wasn’t released until June 2003, almost a year later. It seems that there had been a rethink, and they were now sure that this would be the one that would finally break her into the Top Ten. And “Misfit” reached no. 6, to become her biggest hit single in the UK. What might’ve helped is that the video (another one directed by Muller) seemed to be on Freeview channel TMF very frequently.
In July 2003 her debut album “False Smiles” was released, and this made the Top 20. For a brief moment she was the most famous Amy on the pop scene. Next in October 2003 was “Under The Thumb” (co-written by Alisha’s Attic’s Karen Poole), which reached no. 10, and turned out to be her second and final Top Ten hit single. The next single was a cover, which might’ve disappointed Amy because she was also an aspiring songwriter at this time and probably wanted more chances to show off her skills.
In January 2004 “All I Wanna Do” was released, a cover of the Sheryl Crow hit from 1994. I do remember that the lyrics had to be altered from “I like a good beer buzz” to “I like my caffeine buzz” because she was still under 18 at the time. And this definitely met the approval of Sheryl herself as she provided some backing vocals for this version. This didn’t contain much of the angst of her previous hits though.
However, this reached only no. 21, and shortly after, Amy was dropped by her label. All that effort into promoting her and building her fanbase, and then she just vanished off the scene. Not much has been heard of Amy since, but after recovering from this setback, she remains in the music business as a musician and songwriter, and her third album was released a few years ago.
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