Alexandra Burke

Alexandra Burke

Alexandra Imelda Cecilia Ewen Burke (born 25 August 1988) is a British soul/pop singer and winner of the fifth series of UK television talent show The X Factor. She is the show's second female winner after fellow Londoner and now global recording artist, Leona Lewis. Burke had previously auditioned for the 2005 series of the show, where she reached the last seven in her category but was not selected for the live shows.

Burke's prize, as winner, was a recording contract with Simon Cowell's Syco record label, whose parent company is Sony BMG. The contract has a stated value of £1 million, of which £150,000 is a cash advance and the remainder is allocated to recording and marketing costs.

As of 15 December 2008, Burke became the current European record holder for single sales over a period of 24 hours, selling 105,000 copies of her debut single, "Hallelujah", in one day. The figure beats that of her X Factor predecessor, Leona Lewis, who previously held the record for selling 82,000 copies of her single, "A Moment Like This", over 24 hours. "Hallelujah" went on to become the Christmas number one single of 2008. It was also announced as the top-selling song of the year on the BBC Radio 1 Chart Show on 28 December, 2008, beating The X Factor finalists' song "Hero".

Early life

Alexandra Burke was born on 25 August, 1988 in Islington, London. Her middle names come from her great grandmother (Imelda) and grandfather (Cecil) and her mother's maiden name (Ewen). She is the daughter of ex-Soul II Soul singer Melissa Bell; her parents split up when she was 6. She has lived in Islington all of her life and has four brothers and one sister.

Burke started singing when she was just 5 and, prior to The X Factor, had no professional vocal training. At 9 years old, she sang on stage in Bahrain with her mother. At the age of 12, Burke entered TV show Star for a Night where she was the youngest person in the competition. She was beaten to the number one spot by Joss Stone. At age 12, she also sang down the phone to Stevie Wonder. When Burke’s mother asked her to sing to Jean Carne, Jean was so impressed that she asked her to perform at her show the next night.

Burke attended Elizabeth Garrett Anderson School in Islington and after her GCSEs she left school to pursue a career in music. Before her X Factor success, she had been working as a singer, gigging at weekends in clubs. She recently went on tour with "Young Voices", a charity that raises money for children with Leukaemia, where she has performed at large venues such as The Royal Albert Hall.

The X Factor

Burke auditioned for the second series of The X Factor in 2005 (which was eventually won by Shayne Ward). She made it through to the final seven in Louis Walsh's 16-24 category, effectively the top 21 of the competition; however, Walsh did not choose her for his final four as he felt that she was too young for the competition. Burke's second bid to win The X Factor came in 2008. Falling into the "Girls" category, she was mentored by Girls Aloud's Cheryl Cole who selected her for the finals – a series of ten weekly live shows in which contestants are progressively eliminated by public vote.

On the first live show, Burke performed the Whitney Houston classic, "I Wanna Dance With Somebody". For the second live show she covered "I'll Be There" by The Jackson Five and was criticised by judge Simon Cowell, who called her a "copycat". In week three, Big Band week, Burke performed "Candyman", a Christina Aguilera song, and received her first standing ovation. For the disco-themed fourth live show, Burke performed the Donna Summer song, "On the Radio". During Mariah Carey week on 8 November, Alexandra Burke and the other finalists met Mariah Carey for individual masterclasses, with Carey complimenting Burke on her voice. Alexandra Burke performed "Without You" and received a standing ovation from the judges who all gave her positive comments. Simon Cowell commented that "by any standard, that was just outstanding". Following the show Burke's performance was also praised by Carey who called her rendition of the song "absolutely amazing".

In weeks 6 and 7, Burke received positive comments from the judging panel for her performances of Joe Cocker's "You Are So Beautiful" and Dan Hartman's "Relight My Fire" (the popularity of which in the UK is mostly a result of Take That's 1993 revival thereof). Week 8 saw her replace Diana Vickers as the bookies' favourite after performing Britney Spears's "Toxic" and Beyoncé's "Listen", for which she received yet another standing ovation. In week 9, Burke performed Rihanna's hit song "Don't Stop The Music" and again received positive comments, with Louis calling her "the British Beyoncé" and Simon commenting "...We may be seeing the birth of a star here [...] you've got it all, that was a terrific performance". Diana Vickers was eliminated in the semi-final, to the shock and upset of both Alexandra and Eoghan. Alexandra confessed after Diana's final performance that she thought Diana was going to win.

Alexandra Burke was joined in the grand final by Irish teenager Eoghan Quigg and boyband JLS. She sang "Listen" as a duet with Beyoncé, (Beyoncé later performed her UK Official Number One Single If I Were A Boy), and after performing with the American singer she proclaimed: "I have achieved a dream". After the elimination of Eoghan Quigg she sang what would become her debut single, a Leonard Cohen-penned song, "Hallelujah", for the first time. Finally, with over 8 million votes cast in total, Burke was revealed as the winner with 58% of the final vote.

It was later revealed that Alexandra had received 1 million more votes than JLS in the final.

Simon Cowell announced before the final that 500,000 pre-orders of the winner's single had already been placed.

Post-X Factor

After their duet of "Listen" on The X Factor, Burke claimed on the companion show The Xtra Factor that Beyoncé had expressed an interest in having Burke join her as a support act on her British tour and even possibly recording a duet together.

Burke appeared on the BBC Chart Show on Radio 1 the day following her X Factor victory, and host Fearne Cotton announced she had earlier that day filmed a performance to be shown on the Top of the Pops Christmas special. In the same Radio 1 interview, she said that she would take her time with her debut album and would want creative input.

U.S rapper 50 Cent has expressed an interest in Burke, correctly predicting that she would win The X Factor and going as far as saying he would like her to appear in his upcoming video, most likely for a song from his upcoming album Before I Self Destruct.

Alexandra performed Hero without the other X Factor Finalists at the Sun Millies Ceremony in front of Prince Charles on 18 December, 2008.

Burke sang beside Elton John in The O₂ arena on New Year's Eve, opening the show.

Burke will be recording a duet with Kate Ryan on the British version of Ryan's album Free. The song is called "Tonight We Ride" and is sung by Spanish singer Soraya Arnelas on the European version of the album.

Burke's debut single, "Hallelujah", remained at number 1 for three weeks on the UK singles charts. In the fourth week it dropped to number 3, being replaced in the top spot by Lady GaGa's debut single "Just Dance".

Alexandra's debut album will not be rushed in time for March as once planned. Simon Cowell believes she has the talent to mimic the success of Leona Lewis and is allowing her to perfect her skills. The album is set to be released in November.

Discography

Singles

Year	Single	Chart peak positions			Album
		UK	IRL	EUR
2008	"Hero" (with The X Factor Finalists 2008)	1	1	8	Charity song (single only)
	"Hallelujah"	1	1	6	TBA
Number-one songs		2	2	0
Top-ten hits		2	2	2

External links

• Official website

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