Happy 25th Anniversary to Tina Arena’s fourth studio album In Deep, originally released August 18, 1997.
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Australian music is as varied and diverse as the people that walk its plains. From the ancient sounds of the custodians of country to the sounds of rock and pop, Australia has been home to music, both old and new, for a very long time.
Much of the conversation around women in Australian music revolves around first names like Olivia, Marcia, Kylie and Kate. But one artist, more than all the others, has been in the spotlight for longer than many of us have been alive. Tina Arena is not only an Australian icon, but also a name synonymous with having one of the finest voices in popular music at large.
Having burst onto Australian TV screens back in the late ‘70s at the tender age of just 8 years old via the now legendary Young Talent Time show (known simply as “YTT”), Tina Arena or “Tiny Tina” as she became affectionately known, wowed audiences from the get-go with her powerful vocals and implausible confidence for someone so young. Arena, it seems, was only ever destined for stardom. After many years on the weekly YTT, Arena, like her musical tastes, were maturing and the need to expand her career was now beginning to take form.
After a few failed jump-starts to her new solo career, Arena finally got traction with her first two solo albums, 1990’s Strong As Steel and the chart topping Don’t Ask in 1994. It was arguably Arena’s third album In Deep, released in 1997, that not only took the singer to the US to record, but also saw her again flex her songwriting skills by co-writing eleven of its twelve tracks.
The album itself underwent a number of different reincarnations dependent on the market it was catering too. With ten singles in total released across varying markets, In Deep again hit the #1 spot in Australia on the ARIA charts and also gained her European exposure via her duet with Marc Anthony on “I Want to Spend My Life With you” from the movie The Mask of Zorro.
Arena’s move into a more contemporary pop/rock sound was further cemented on In Deep with the album’s lead single “Burn,” which again soared toward the top of the ARIA charts in Australia (#2) and even found its way, ever so softly, into the lucrative and then incredibly unattainable US market that eluded so many Australian artists at the time. Not the impact that Arena and Sony had maybe dreamed of, but she was getting noticed and that accounted for a lot in the ‘90s.
In Deep saw Arena collaborate with some of the music industry’s finest when it came to co-writing (Pam Reswick, Steve Werfel and David Tyson amongst others), as well as having the overall album produced by Tyson and Mick Jones of Foreigner fame. Arena also covered one of Jones and Foreigner’s most recognized songs on the album, the heartbreakingly beautiful power ballad of the ‘80s, “I Want to Know What Love Is,” which again put Arena at the top of the charts, this time in France, a market that was quickly becoming one of Arena’s most lucrative and would go on to play an enormous role in both her musical and personal life moving forward. An iconic song that not only suited Arena’s powerful vocal range, it also allowed her to play in the ballad arena largely dominated at the time by international singers Celine Dion, Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston.
The album’s second single. “Now I Can Dance,” was as Arena herself so candidly stated, “a love letter from her to her family.” The song again performed well in Australia (#13) and also became the title of the singer’s 2013 memoir. One single not included on the Australian version, which made an appearance on the UK, Brazilian and Japanese versions, was the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical number “Whistle Down The Wind.” A rather unusual inclusion given the overall adult contemporary/pop/rock theme of the album, but an addition that again showcased the singer’s versatility when it came to exploring her musical avenues.
Those musical avenues were further explored as Arena’s French version of the album included two French-language songs, with “Aller plus haut,” Arena’s first French single, which became an enormous hit for the singer, staying at #2 for a massive six consecutive weeks. The other French song, “Les Trois Cloches,” a Swiss song written in French and perhaps most recognized as one of Edith Piaf’s greatest hits, again flexed Arena’s musical prowess, this time by way of exploration of other languages. The beautiful “Segnali di Fumo,” a duet with Luca Barbarossa, moved into Arena’s Italian heritage and gave the album its third language, something not seen by any other Australian artist at the time.
With so much talk about Arena becoming Australia’s answer to Celine Dion, it came as no surprise that legendary songwriter Diane Warren was again given input on the US version of In Deep with “If I Was a River.” This was the second time Arena had used one of Warren’s songs (“Strong as Steel”) and given that Warren’s songs dominated the US charts in the ‘90s, using her music was an obvious choice for a potential US breakthrough hit. Like the aforementioned Marc Anthony duet “I Want to Spend My Lifetime Loving You” and the smash hit movie that was associated with the song (The Mask of Zorro), In Deep still failed to make any kind of major mark on the US charts, which some have said must have been a source of frustration for Columbia/Sony, Arena’s record label at the time.
Hindsight, though, is a truly wonderful thing and given that Arena, a star in her own right and not needing any comparisons or help via any particular market, made In Deep a commercial and critical success. Arena’s commitment to this album shone through as both musical artist and writer, dual roles that Arena has continued to cultivate throughout the twenty-five years since In Deep’s release, which solidified the creative foundation for one of Australia’s most important artists.
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