Nerina Pallot

Nerina Pallot came into the world in London on April 26, 1974. During childhood she acquired piano skills on her own, picked up guitar afterward, and devoted time at boarding school to violin and opera training. Following her Polydor signing she delivered the 2001 summer release Dear Frustrated Superstar, which carried the singles “Patience” and “Alien.” Management arranged an opening spot on Bryan Adams’ arena trek, after which the label withdrew the album to prepare a new edition anchored by “Photograph.” A live mishap on the children’s program Live and Kicking, in which Steps vocalist Faye Tozer pushed Pallot off the couch on air, produced widespread mockery and prompted Polydor to drop her weeks later without restoring Dear Frustrated Superstar to stores. Apart from supplying the lead vocal on Delerium’s 2003 single “Truly,” she stayed out of view for the next four years. She resurfaced in spring 2005 with Fires, issued on her own Idaho imprint. The album earned strong notices and sales, prompting a revised version the following year on Warner’s 14th Floor Records subsidiary that reached number 21 on the U.K. album charts; “Everybody’s Gone to War” became a Top 20 single. Her third studio set, The Graduate, arrived in 2009 and entered the U.K. Top 50, an achievement repeated by 2011’s Year of the Wolf after her return to Polydor. Seeking to disrupt the usual writing-recording cycle, she devoted 2014 to a run of monthly self-released EPs collectively known as The Year of the EPs and limited her U.K. appearances. The Sound and the Fury followed in 2015, a raw album mixing new tracks with re-recordings drawn from those EPs. A year later the EPs were gathered as My Best Friends Are Imaginary: A Year of EPs. Stay Lucky appeared in 2017 and landed inside the U.K. Top 100.