DELTA GOODREM

Delta Lea Goodrem AM (born 9 November 1984) is an Australian musician, songwriter, television personality and actress. Goodrem signed a recording contract with Sony Music at the age of 15. Her debut studio album, Innocent Eyes (2003), topped the ARIA Albums Chart for 29 non-consecutive weeks. It is one of the highest-selling Australian albums and is the second-best-selling Australian album of all time with over four million copies sold.

Goodrem’s second studio album, Mistaken Identity (2004), was recorded while she was undergoing treatment for cancer. It became her second number-one album. In 2007, Goodrem released Delta, her third number-one album, which saw another number-one single, “In This Life”. Her fourth studio album, Child of the Universe (2012), produced the single “Sitting on Top of the World”. In 2016, her fifth studio album, Wings of the Wild, became her fourth number-one album on the ARIA Albums Chart, while giving her another number-one single, “Wings”. Goodrem’s most recent and fifth number-one studio album, Bridge over Troubled Dreams was released May 2021.

Goodrem has a total of nine number-one singles and 17 top-ten hits on the ARIA Singles Chart. She has sold over eight million albums globally and overall has won three World Music Awards, 9 ARIA Music Awards, an MTV Video Music Award and several other awards. She served as a coach on The Voice Australia from 2012 to 2013 and again from 2015 to 2020. During her one-season hiatus in 2014, she served as a coach on The Voice Kids, and coached eventual winner Alexa Curtis. She coached eventual winners of the show in season five in 2016 and again in season six in 2017. With the release of her Christmas studio album Only Santa Knows in 2020, since then, she has a Christmas show every year, hosted by Channel 9.

Goodrem appeared in an American advertisement aged seven for the former toy company Galoob, alongside fellow Australian Bec Hewitt, and began playing piano at the same age while taking up singing, dancing and acting lessons. She appeared in adverts for companies such as Optus and Nesquik, and had several minor roles in episodes of Australian television shows including Hey Dad..!, A Country Practice, and Police Rescue.

While residing in Glenhaven, she attended the Hills Grammar School in neighbouring Kenthurst, from kindergarten until Year 11. At the age of thirteen, Goodrem recorded a five-song demo CD, financed through her television work. It was sent to the Australian rules football club Sydney Swans (of which Goodrem is a supporter) and they passed it onto talent manager Glenn Wheatley. Wheatley signed Goodrem to an artist development deal with independent record label, Empire Records.

Between June 1999 and September 2000, Goodrem worked with producers Paul Higgins and Trevor Carter on thirteen tracks for an album to be called Delta. A later report on these sessions described Goodrem as “an ambitious 15-year-old keen to emulate the pop sound of the Spice Girls, Britney Spears and Mandy Moore.” Most of the tracks were written by Carter, although Goodrem co-wrote two and self-wrote the song “Love”. Goodrem did a photoshoot for the album (some of the photos have surfaced), and recorded a home-made style music video for the song “Say” which has since leaked onto the internet. Higgins took the album to Village Roadshow, which offered to market and distribute the album, but the deal was blocked by Goodrem’s parents. The album has yet to surface, though it became the subject of a lawsuit in 2004.

Goodrem’s debut single was a pop-dance song which failed to make an impact on the charts. At the age of 15, Goodrem signed a recording contract with Sony Music and began work on an album of pop–dance songs including the unsuccessful debut single, “I Don’t Care”, which peaked at number sixty four on the ARIA Singles Chart in November 2001. The album and proposed second single “A Year Ago Today” were pushed aside as a result, allowing Goodrem and Sony to re-evaluate her future musical direction. In 2002, Goodrem took up the role as shy school girl and aspiring singer Nina Tucker in the popular television soap opera Neighbours, which helped re-launch Goodrem’s music career. The piano-based ballad “Born to Try”, co-written by Audius Mtawarira, premiered on the show and reached number one on the ARIA Singles Chart and the New Zealand singles chart, and number three in the UK. Born to Try was certified triple Platinum in Australia for sales of over 210,000 copies. Goodrem’s role on the show scored her a Logie for “Most Popular New Talent” at the Logie Awards of 2003. In January 2003, “Lost Without You” topped the ARIA Singles Chart and reached number four in New Zealand and the UK. it was certified double platinum for sales over 140,000 copies in Australia.

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