Sonia

    Once upon a time chubby faced ginger Liverpudlian approached pop producer Pete Waterman and broke into song. Pete was so impressed he got her a record deal with Chrysalis Records and produced her debut single You’ll Never Stop Me From Loving You. That young girl was unlikely pop princess Sonia! The pride of Britain at 1993’s Eurovision and now a bonafied pop trash addiction. Sonia’s debut single topped the pop charts in 1989 and became an anthem for would be stalkers everywhere. Follow up singles included Can’t Forget You, Listen To Your Heart which made the Top 10 and Counting Every Minute and the ballad End Of The World which were solid Top 20 entries. The album is one of the great PWL produced albums! Another single You’ve Got A Friend, a duet with Big Fun was another hit in 1990.

...Be foolish?...

Sonia left the Hit Factory in 1990 and signed with Arista in the UK . She decided to go with a more adult sound on her next, self titled, album. Only Fools Never Fall In Love was the lead single. The jolly retro-ish mid-tempo just made the Top 10 in 1991. More singles, Be Young Be Foolish Be Happy and a cover of Barry White’s You To Me Are Everything were released and made the Top 20, but the album didn’t enjoy stellar sales.

Eurovision! 

In 1993 things looked up as Sonia’s Better The Devil You Know (no, not the Kylie hit) was voted as the UK ’s entry to the Eurovision Song Contest. It did extremely well and an album of the same name was released. A second single a cover of Boogie Nights was released but the album wasn’t a big hit.

Hopeless! 

Now freed from label constraints Sonia took up a career on the stage appearing in Grease and What A Feeling. She released a single with the Gladiators! And a cover of Olivia Newton John’s Hopelessly Devoted To You, which flopped! Another single Wake Up Everybody was released in 1996, but the public had forgotten all about Sonia and it only scraped the Top 200!!!

Reborn?

Sonia turned up on the 2003 reality show Reborn In The USA where she battled it out with such has-beens as Elkie Brooks , Michelle Gayle and Dollar! It was Sonia’s now legendary feud with Dollar that got people talking about the show which had got off to a rocky start in terms of ratings. Dollar accused Sonia of posting insults about the duo on her web site while they were up against each other in the first week’s nominations. The confrontation was priceless as were Sonia’s takes on The Greatest Love Of All and Faith Hill’s If My Heart Had Wings which had audiences mopping blood out of there ears for weeks after!! A compilation of her Arista material was released in 2007.

- Jamie

Only Fools Never Fall In Love (1991)