Laura Pausini 'From the Inside' album

A bona fide international sensation, Laura Pausini has sold 20 million albums around the world. Her recordings in Italian and Spanish have earned her an extraordinary 160 platinum discs, making Laura truly a household voice throughout Europe and South America. Now, nearly a decade after her recording debut, Laura makes her long-awaited English language premiere with the captivating "FROM THE INSIDE," her first album for Atlantic Records.

"I had received a lot of proposals to do English albums before, but I said yes only now - not because of the challenge of recording in a new language, but really because I wanted to feel ready and strong as a person and as an artist before I made this step."
-- Laura Pausini

A superb collection of modern pop and entrancing ballads, the album finds Pausini's exceptional voice ably supported by a stellar line-up of A-list producers, including John Shanks (Michelle Branch, Melissa Etheridge, Joe Cocker), KC Porter (Carlos Santana, Ricky Martin), Guy Roche (Cher, Celine Dion), Evan Rogers and Carl Sturken (*NSYNC, Christina Aguilera), Patrick Leonard (Jewel, Madonna), and Jimmy Bralower (M2M, Cyndi Lauper).

Born in the small northern Italian village of Solarolo (population: 3,000), Laura's career was launched in 1993, when she became the surprise winner at the prestigious Italian Song Festival in San Remo. Then only 18, she exploded onto the global scene, and has since earned widespread acclaim and an enviable array of awards. Among her many accolades are such prominent honors as the World Music Award for "Best-Selling Italian Artist," the Lo Nuestro Award in the U.S. for "Most Promising Latin Artist," and the I.F.P.I. Platinum Europe Award, as well as four 2001 Latin Grammy Awards nominations (including "Best Female Pop Vocal Album").

A global superstar, Laura's previous albums - five sung in Italian, and four in Spanish, plus a "Best Of" set (all released via Warner Music International) - have gone 30 times platinum in Italy, 21 times platinum in Spain, 18 times platinum in Brazil, 12 times platinum in Switzerland, 10 times platinum in Chile, and the list goes on and on - with multiple sales awards in Mexico, Argentina, France, Holland, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and Portugal. In addition, she has already sold a million albums in the U.S. in the Latin market.

The fall 2001 release of "THE BEST OF LAURA PAUSINI" served as a fitting close to the first phase of her career, while at the same time introducing some of the musical elements which are shaping her new music. The album included two previously unreleased tracks: "E ritorno da te/Volver? junto a ti" and "Una storia che vale/Dos historias iguales,'' plus rearranged versions of some of her biggest international hits, such as "Non c'?/Se fu?" and "Seamisai/Cuando se ama," sung as a duet with Gilberto Gil.

Her captivating live performances have thrilled Laura's legions of fans around the world. In the course of her stellar career, Pausini has performed at a variety of high-profile events, including Pope John Paul II's annual Christmas Concert and 1999's "Pavarotti & Friends" charity extravaganza.

In 1996, Laura made her first foray into singing in English, with a song written for her by Phil Collins. "Italian television wanted to devote a show to me," Pausini explains, "and I wanted to invite someone whose music I liked very much. I immediately thought of Phil, because he is one of my favorite songwriters. He agreed to come to Italy, and we had a very good working relationship. So he wrote a song for me called 'Looking For An Angel,' and we also did concerts together in Italy and Sweden."

Prior to the release this year of "FROM THE INSIDE," Laura made a pair of English language contributions to Atlantic motion picture soundtrack albums: "One More Time" (written by Richard Marx and produced by David Foster) for "MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE" (1999), and "The Extra Mile" for "POK?MON 2000: THE POWER OF ONE."

The decision to contribute to "Pok?mon" "was a strange experience for me," says Laura, "because even though I'm a brand-new artist here in the U.S., I started ten years ago in Europe. And I want to continue to mature as an artist. So the 'Pok?mon' offer came along at a moment when I wanted to take a step up musically, and it was difficult for me to say yes to the project, because I thought it was a kind of contradiction, doing a song for a children's cartoon. But when I actually listened to the song itself, I felt that it had a very deep meaning, so I decided to do it."

Although she had gotten her proverbial feet wet with these initial English recordings, the decision to not only do an entire new studio album from scratch in the language, but to record the project in the U.S., found Laura embarking on a major new phase of her musical life.

"I wanted this challenge in my career, first of all because it's something that I need. Even though I'm only 28, I've had so many experiences in my life, and some of my friends told me, 'Okay, sit down and enjoy your life, you've done a lot of things.' But I still feel like a baby with my music, and I don't want to feel that I'm already ripe. So I can't wait to start again in America. Some other European singers told me that I'm crazy, because I have to start again here and do all the things that you have to do when you haven't yet had success. But I'm a curious person in my work, and I want to try.

"I didn't ask to be a star, but something very strange happened in my life. I started singing when I was eight, in piano bars with my father. I did this for ten years, and then, when I won the song festival at San Remo, I realized a dream, and I really didn't want anything else. So all the things that happened after that were opportunities that I realized that I could or couldn't take, as, let's say, when a train stops in front of you. But I am a person who understands how important it is to take what luck puts in front of you."

"FROM THE INSIDE" took two years to complete, as Laura shuttled between her recording sessions in the States (primarily in California) and her ongoing international commitments. "My fans around the world are very, very important to me," says Laura," and my experiences in those countries taught me a lot of things - how to perform on stage, how to grow up, and how to really feel like an artist. So taking two years to make my first English album gave me more time to feel comfortable with it, to decide who were the right producers, and who were the right songwriters. They talked with me, and they wanted to know what I wanted and what I hated. And that made me very happy, because I didn't just want to feel like another European artist singing in English. I wanted to feel the same mood that I have over the last ten years singing in Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese."

"American singers already have a universal language, but I think I am luckier than they are. Because I was not born in an English-speaking country, I had to learn Spanish and Portuguese to get where I wanted to go. Singing in those languages, and now in English, has meant learning a lot of different cultures. I can understand a lot of ways of living and how people think in many different countries. I feel that it helps me as an artist and as a woman to have had a large cultural experience, and I hope to give that back to the people."

Besides bringing a rare cultural diversity to "FROM THE INSIDE," Laura sought musical diversity by enlisting a variety of producers for the album.
"In Italy, it's not so common to have a lot of producers on one album," she explains. "So working with different producers was exciting for me, because I took from them different kinds of styles and ideas."

One of the first producers to come on board was KC Porter, whom Laura calls her "main man" on the album. "When Atlantic proposed that I do an English album, I said, 'Yes, but I want to find the right person to help me.' I had a lot of idols, but I needed someone who would make me feel comfortable - to allow me to be very honest and to not be scared to say what I feel. I'm a very direct person, sometimes too much so. I met KC two and a half years ago in New York, and it was because of him that I made the final decision to do an English record. He has a heart and an attitude that I am very, very comfortable with."

So it was that KC not only produced four tracks on the album ("Every Day Is A Monday," "You Are," "Without You," and "It's Not Goodbye"), but became one of its executive producers, along with Laura herself, her manager Alfredo Cerruti, Atlantic Co-Presidents Ron Shapiro and Craig Kallman, and Warner Music International A&R exec Ruby Marchand.

In an unexpected twist, one of the songs produced by KC, "Every Day Is A Monday," although "born in English" (to quote Laura) and first picked for "FROM THE INSIDE," won Porter the 2001 Latin Grammy for Best Producer. "We liked the song so much," explains Laura," that we translated it into Italian and Spanish, and it became famous first in Europe and South America."

The only other song not making its premiere on "FROM THE INSIDE" is "It's Not Good-Bye," a song co-written by Laura which was originally released in Italian (as "In Assenza Di Te") in 1998. One of her biggest international hits, Laura re-recorded the song for the new album, with English lyrics adapted by noted wordsmith Shelly Peiken.

The first single, "Surrender," was produced by John Shanks and is an irresistible slice of pure dance pop. "Some of my older fans might be surprised to hear it," comments Laura, "since the first single from my other albums have always been ballads. But 'Surrender' convinced me to try a new way to start, because I can recognize myself in the song, even if it's a new mood for me. I feel very comfortable in this song, especially since I'm not the kind of person who likes to surrender in front of a lot of things, except in front of the person I love. So this song represents me very well."

Two songs on the album, the album-title-inspiring "Love Comes From the Inside" and "Every Little Thing You Do," were produced by Patrick Leonard. "I was very curious to work with him," Laura enthuses, "not only because he's had a lot of success, but because he is a real musician who can also use technology to create new sounds, but without losing the music. So I loved working with him. We rehearsed 'Every Little Thing You Do' with just Patrick on the piano and me standing behind him with a microphone. We thought it sounded so wonderful, so real, so emotional, that we decided to put it on the record just as we rehearsed it, in addition to the full recording we did with the whole band. We made the acoustic version the last song on the album, and it's very special to me."

The album's opening track, "I Need Love," was produced by Guy Roche. "It was amazing working with people who are idols for me? He taught me in a very calm way to sing without any stress around me. Next up on the collection is the aptly title "Do I Dare," produced by Evan Rogers and Carl Sturken, and which, as Laura says, "reflects the most important sense I have in my mind right now, and represents very well the way I feel today."

Reflecting on the two-year odyssey which has led at last to the release of "FROM THE INSIDE," Laura states: "It's been a strange experience, spending such a long period in America. When you have a big career in your own country or around the world, and you leave that for a while, sometimes it's dangerous. And there are days that I say, 'I hope my fans will understand that this is a very important step for me, and they will continue to follow me.' I'm a Taurus, and even though I'm not really into astrology, when I read something about my sign, I recognize myself a lot. I'm a very stubborn person, and I like to work very much. And now I have this opportunity, and I want to fight until the end, because I believe in it, and I'm not willing to compromise. Whether it works or not, I'm sure that I have the strength to try and to grow. And maybe because I already have so much, it might sound strange for me to want to have other things. But why not?

"I come from a small Italian village, and I know everyone there, every name, every face. They have followed my career, and they know exactly where I am right now. And they can't believe that this has happened to a person from there. And in a certain way I know that in a little part, I represent my country. So it's a big responsibility. And this is maybe one of the reasons that I just want to do my best."

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Laura Pausini - From the Inside