May 16: "Queen of Italian pop," Italian singer-songwriter Laura Pausini is 37 years-old today.

Laura Alice Rossella Pausini OMRI, was born in Solarolo, Province of Ravenna, Italy. Signed with Warner Music Group since 1993, she is one of the most famous and successful Italian singer-songwriters worldwide.

Dubbed the "Queen of Italian pop," Pausini is noteworthy because of her soulful voice and romantic ballads. She is also known for multilingual music productions that span five languages—her native Italian, Spanish, English, Portuguese and French.

Pausini debuted at the 43rd Annual Sanremo Music Festival in 1993. Her first place victory in the competition's New Talent division helped launch her music career in Europe. Since 1996, she has concurrently released Spanish–language companion editions with her studio albums. In 2001, she released a greatest hits album, issued in the two editions—Italian and Spanish. Following an English-language crossover attempt in 2002, Pausini returned with the studio album Escucha. The recording garnered a Grammy Award for Best Latin Pop Album in 2006.

As of March 2009, Pausini has achieved worldwide record sales in excess of 60 million. In 2004, with Pausini's sales tally at only 25 million, Allmusic's Jason Birchmeier considered this "an impressive feat for someone who'd never really broken into the lucrative English–language market."

In August 2010, Pausini announced that her new album will be coming in Christmas 2011. It is also rumored that a fan party (will be recorded and released as a DVD. Its name is expected to be 4U.

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Laura is the elder of two daughters. She started to sing in local piano bars with her father Fabrizio, a musician and singer, when she was only eight years old.

At the age of thirteen, Laura had her first recording experience with the album I sogni di Laura (Laura's Dreams), a semi-professional release produced by her father in 1987. In 1993 her career was launched when she won the prestigious Italian Sanremo Music Festival with one of her best known songs, "La solitudine."

In 1993, she signed a contract with Warner Music Italy to release her first professional album, Laura Pausini, which was a big success in Italy, France, as well as in The Netherlands. Her second album, Laura, was released in 1994 and was such a big hit that her recording company offered her a deal to record in Spanish.

At the end of 1994, Pausini released her first Spanish album, Laura Pausini, a compilation of ten adapted versions of hits from her first two Italian albums. Her song "Se fue" was one of the most played songs of 1995 according to the Hot Latin Tracks chart of Billboard.

Following this success, Pausini simultaneously released Spanish editions of her native Italian language albums: Le cose che vivi, La mia risposta and Tra te e il mare), were released in Spain and Latin America as Las cosas que vives, Mi respuesta and Entre tú y mil mares, respectively. In 1996, She also recorded three bonus tracks in Portuguese for a special edition of her album Le cose che vivi.

The first English language recording made by Pausini was of her Italian language hit "La solitudine"  by lyricist Tim Rice as "The Loneliness" for a UK single release in June 1995 which did not sell well. In 1999 she contributed the Richard Marx composition "One More Time" to the Message in a Bottle soundtrack.

Also in 1999, Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti invited Pausini to his annual "Pavarotti and Friends" concert. They sang the Italian version of the aria Dein ist mein ganzes Herz, titled Tu che m'hai preso il cuor, from Franz Lehár's operetta Das Land des Lächelns. In 2000, she recorded the song "The Extra Mile" for the soundtrack of the movie Pokémon 2000: The Power of One.

Pausini's first English album, From the Inside, was released by Atlantic Records in November 2002. The first single "Surrender" became a U.S. disco hit reaching #1 on the Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart in Billboard but - despite extensive promotion by Pausini - the track did not receive wide play from U.S. radio. "Surrender" did become a Top Ten hit in Canada. The track returned Pausini to the charts in several European nations reaching #7 in Italy.

 The album's second single: "If That's Love" reached #1 on the Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart in the spring of 2003. The album's global sales are estimated at 800,000 units with the U.S. tally a disappointing 100,000.

In November 2007, Laura won a Latin Grammy Award for the best female album with Yo Canto, and the Spanish version of the album Io Canto. Laura dedicated the award to the memory of Italian legend Luciano Pavarotti.

In 2008 Laura spent most of her time in the studio, recording her tenth studio album called Primavera in anticipo in Spanish (titled Primavera Anticipada) and in Italian. The international version of the album was released on 18 November in Spain, Portugal, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Poland, Turkey, Malta and other European countries. In  December 2008, the album was released in the United States, Canada, Brazil, Argentina and Venezuela.

In November 2009 she won her third Latin Grammy Award for best female album for Primavera anticipada, and in 2010 she won her third Lo Nuestro Award for "Female artist of the year," becoming one of the best selling Latin artist of all time.



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