IT takes a lot to beat Anastacia. The 5ft 3in singer might not look like she could take on the world, but spend one minute in her company and it becomes clear why this hugely successful star seemed to take even breast cancer in her stride.
Looking lithe and healthy, hair immaculate, make-up perfect, the 31-year-old is a force of nature, rather than the Freak Of Nature of her debut album's title.
She has just completed a demanding world tour, including an outstanding performance at Liverpool's Summer Pops.
And rather than drain her after her year-long battle with breast cancer in 2003, which was followed by the weighty demands of promoting her third album Anastacia throughout 2004, the tour gave the New York-born star a new lease of life.
"It's amazing what a tour can do for one's physical spirit," she says..
"It was hard getting into it because I wasn't quite as healed as I wanted to be. But it helped. Even though I may have dropped five pounds, my body is solid.
"And I am going to stay like this because I know it's good for my spirit. It's really nice to have my self back.
"I feel younger, happier, like I can run marathons."
As we head into the later part of 2005 Anastacia's music career is beginning to wind down for a while. In November she releases her first greatest hits collection. It will be preceded by an as
yet undecided new single, one of four new songs that feature on the hits collection. "One of them people have heard already, the collaboration with Ben Moody we did for the Fantastic Four soundtrack," says Anastacia.
"There's another duet with an Italian singer called Eros Ramazzotti who is unbelievable. He's sold millions of records and the character of his voice is very interesting.
"Then the other two songs are absolutely new Anastacia songs."
Promotion for the greatest hits will take Anastacia into 2006, then she's taking a well-earned break. She says not to expect a new album until 2007 or even 2008.
"There's all these little things that I'm doing that you'll end up seeing, but won't have anything to do with music."
But for now, we'll be seeing plenty of Anastacia. The singer has been expanding her professional horizons already by taking on the role of judge for MTV's new X Factor-style talent search show MTV A Cut.
The music channel held auditions in five European countries - Denmark, UK, Italy, Holland and Germany -looking for 10 bands (of any genre) with enough talent and potential to put into a week-long training camp.
From those 10, Anastacia and a variety of music industry specialists have to pick two acts for the final, the winner getting the opportunity to open for Anastacia on her recent tour.
"There were tears," she says. "From me! From me every day! It was very hard for me because I really didn't want to crush any of these poor people's dreams.
"But I also wanted to keep the integrity of the show and I felt like I was battling MTV and battling my own spirit because I didn't want to get reality show-based.
"I wanted them to keep it about the music and it was hard for me to do that because reality shows come easy to MTV. It was hard for them to trust in me that we didn't need all that here."
Anastacia got involved with the show as it gave her an opportunity to repeat her own history with a new talent. She herself was discovered on MTV US's talent show The Cut in 1998.
Her performance caught the attention of a number of record companies and eventually she signed with Epic. Now the same is happening with acts from MTV A Cut - four of the bands are currently being chased by record labels.
* MTV A Cut is on MTV from Sunday September 11. Anastacia's new single and greatest hits album are out in November.
Liverpool Daily Post |
