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Welcome to Addicted to the Corrs
This fan site is dedicated to the Irish pop
sensation, the Corrs!
Get your daily dose of Corrs pictures and
multimedia here. Enjoy! :)
About the Corrs
When the Corrs were recently in Times
Square filming a video for "Irresistible,"
the locals were wondering just who was at the heart of all that high-tech
action. But a throng of European and Asian tourists stopped in their
tracks, pointing and nudging their way toward the cameras. The Irish
foursome may be relatively unrecognizable in the U.S., but they are
enormously popular overseas: Their latest album, In Blue, sold in
excess of 2 million copies within 14 days of its European release. For the
Corrs, the precarious pedestrian island they were commandeering in the
middle of zooming Times Square traffic was a beachhead in their renewed
quest to conquer America.
Now if you happened to be walking through
the Crossroads of the World on one of those blustery days, you too may
have felt compelled to join the gawking tourists, because the Corrs
sisters - Andrea, Caroline, and Sharon - are ridiculously attractive. In
fact, the cover photo for In Blue, which has the vibe of a fashion
shoot, might be a bit misleading. Unlike your average airbrushed pop
stars, the Corrs don't really need a stylist to enhance their natural
beauty. And you could say the same for their music. On In Blue,
they've availed themselves of some hit-making help from Shania Twain's
producer and husband, Robert John "Mutt" Lange, and they sent their
previous studio album, Talk on Corners, to a team of trendy
remixers to make it dancefloor compatible. But if you really want to
appreciate the Corrs, all you have to do is listen to them harmonize live,
accompanied by their bandleading brother Jim. You can't manufacture that
sort of sound.
The Corrs remain a breed apart from
most present-day pop concoctions. They write their own material,
co-produce their records, and play their own instruments. Andrea, who in a
minute or two of screen time as Juan Peron's mistress in Evita,
made an indelible impression as a vocalist, sings lead; Caroline plays
drums; Sharon plays violin; Jim, who initially brought the group together,
plays guitar. As a group, they've made guest appearances as singers and
instrumentalists on albums by Rod Stewart and the Chieftains.
If their work favors a broad
international audience in any way, it's in the range of elements they draw
from: pop, rock, country, traditional Irish melodies, and the electronic
beats of modern dance music. A ballad like "One Night" is a simple,
string-filled track anchored by programmed beats. "Give
Me a Reason," produced by the Corrs alone, has the sort of bubbling
techno textures that wouldn't be out of place on Madonna's Ray of
Light, some guitar power chords that Bryan Adams might find mighty
appealing, and an Irish fiddle break somewhere in the middle. The
unpredictability of it all is part of the charm.
In Blue marks the 10th anniversary
of the Corrs as a group. They were raised in the small town of Dundalk,
Ireland, by parents who harbored their own musical ambitions - and found
time, in between working and raising a family, to play in a pop covers
band on the weekends. Their mother, who was devoted to her children's
career, died within the last year, and the new record is dedicated to
her.
It was brother Jim who cajoled his
younger sisters, two of whom were still attending school, to form a group
so they could attend open auditions for Alan Parker's The
Commitments, the musical comedy film that would display to the world
the depth of young Irish musical and acting talent. All four of them
landed roles in the picture, with Andrea featured as the younger sister of
the lead character, hapless band manager Jimmy Rabbitte. (That's how
Andrea landed her tiny but telling part in Parker's subsequent Evita.)
Trying out for
The Commitments was a mission
of self-discovery, too: they realized their collective potential as a
group. So did Commitments music supervisor John Hughes, himself a
musician, who immediately recognized the family's gifts and offered to
manage them. He didn't exactly have any managing experience, but he was
smitten. It's not hard to see why now, but it wasn't such an easy call at
the start of the '90s. A homespun Irish family combo didn't jive with the
emerging world of grunge and alt-rock in the States or the burgeoning
international rave scene - nor did they resemble either the Celtic
mysticism of Enya and her family group, Clannad, or the
straightforward trad sound of the Chieftains.
Hughes finally
found them a deal in the U.S. with Lava, a subsidiary of Atlantic Records,
and made their first recordings in L.A. That was a roundabout way to get
noticed in their homeland. They released their debut, Forgiven, Not
Forgotten, in 1995 and it became the biggest-selling debut by a native
group in Ireland - and it sold more than 4 million copies worldwide.
Though they've always had respectable sales in the U.S., they got their
biggest boost here last year from Talk on Corners: Special Edition,
a disc comprising remixes of tracks from their second album, Talk on
Corners. Last year they also released Unplugged for their
overseas audience, an album produced with the group and Mitchell Froom,
best known for his work with Los Lobos, Elvis Costello, Crowded House, and
Suzanne Vega. (That acoustic session included covers of R.E.M.'s
"Everybody Hurts" and Jimi Hendrix's "Little Wing.")
Watch out world! the Corrs invasion
has just begun!
Go to top of the Corrs page!
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