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Today Tina Arena is Australia's most successful female recording artist. She spent her childhood in the late 70s on national Australian television on the weekly feel-good Young Talent Time show, where a regular troupe of children sang the hits of the day and yesterday until each child reached 'retirement' age and was replaced with another bright, but younger singer. Many of those children struggled personally and professionally once they were replaced. A few, after battling to re-establish themselves. have gone on to meaningful careers in entertainment. Even as a tiny girl known for her big voice and stage presence Tina Arena dropped from sight for several years following her Young Talent Time tenure, years she spent trying to get up a recording career, working the club circuit alone or in bands, or appearing in musicals. In 1990 at the age of 21 she was reinvented as a raunchy disco diva with a national #2 single, "I Need Your Body." It gave her a successful album and more hits, but was a momentary apparition, because this was never a music style or an image Tina herself was comfortable with. Another "silent" period followed during which she appeared in a production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat, and spent some time living in Los Angeles. Determined to succeed, in 1994 she landed a new Sony recording contract on her own terms, lauching her new career with the powerful soul ballad "Chains," which became a hit world-wide. Her David Tyler produced album Don't Ask was Australia's biggest selling album of 1995, and the biggest selling album by any Australian female. Don't Ask sold two million copies globally. She followed with the Australian triple platinum In Deep, produced by Foreigner's Mick Jones. 1999 saw Tina with a massive hit in France, and the break-up of her marriage and business relationship with manager Ralph Carr. ~ Ed. Nimmervoll, All Music Guide
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