In 2005, the Netherlands sent in a promising young singer who had won the Dutch Soundmix show already at the age of 16, making an almost perfect impersonation of Whitney Houston.
The Soundmix show - designed for people to sing as similarly as possible to well-known singers - was always a dubious place to look for fresh talent. You never knew who carried the grains of a real artist inside and who was just a gifted copycat.
For a long time, Glennis Grace seemed just like the latter version. She had a good voice, but it seemed impossible for her to get rid of the Whitney connection and when she won the 2005 Dutch national final she already had one flop album behind her.
Glennis Grace - My Impossible Dream (Netherlands 2005)
Glennis was one of several hot fan favourites before the semi-final in Kyiv, but her cliché-ridden ballad - a tired re-write of several Whitney-esque ballads - failed to qualify for the final and it seemed Glennis' career had hit rock bottom and arrived at its end station.
But sometimes a complete meltdown is what your career needs. Glennis was dumped by her label, had a change of management and, perhaps most importantly, had a change of language and started singing in Dutch.
When she participated in the popular tv-show "De beste zangers van Nederland" in 2011, she made a cover of the song "Afscheid" and finally found instant success with the larger audience. Gone was the Whitney-clone and instead there is a real performer with her very own expression and a much wiser use of her really impressive voice.
Now that she has found herself - as well as her audience - maybe Glennis should ponder doing Eurovision again? If she was the one to take the Netherlands back into the final, for the first time since 2004, I am sure the audience would never forget.
Glennis Grace - Afscheid
Whoa. I had to replay that immediately.
ReplyDeleteHowever, the uvular fricatives don't travel well, and would be best avoided for a broader audience.