Italian Classics: Mina Collection, Vol. 1

Biography

There are at least 8 artists named Mina: 1. Mina, stage name of Anna Maria Mazzini (March 25, 1940, Busto Arsizio, Province of Varese), is an Italian singer. She lives in Switzerland. Although born in a small town of Lombardy, she grew up in Cremona city: where her nickname of "Cremona Tiger" was given to her by her friend, the journalist Natalia Aspesi. She began her career singing pop songs with a "jazzy" feel in the late 1950s. Her first stage name used to be Baby Gate. After a 1958 concert...

There are at least 8 artists named Mina:

1. Mina, stage name of Anna Maria Mazzini (March 25, 1940, Busto Arsizio, Province of Varese), is an Italian singer. She lives in Switzerland. Although born in a small town of Lombardy, she grew up in Cremona city: where her nickname of "Cremona Tiger" was given to her by her friend, the journalist Natalia Aspesi.

She began her career singing pop songs with a "jazzy" feel in the late 1950s. Her first stage name used to be Baby Gate. After a 1958 concert at La Bussola, a nightclub on the Versilia famous for hosting artists such as Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald, she became a national star in Italy. Her first television appearance was in 1959. In the following two years she took part in the Sanremo Music Festival.

In 1963 her TV and radio career for Rai came to an end, as she refused to hide the fact she was pregnant (she had a relationship with actor Corrado Pani, who was married to Renata Monteduro). However, her unscathed appeal with the audience later made Rai's functionaries call her back. Mina subsequently appeared in numerous TV shows, mostly as a hostess, during the late 1960s and the 1970s. Mina gained also wide popularity abroad, singing also in French, German, Turkish and Japanese. In 1966 she moved her residence to Lugano, Switzerland, obtaining Swiss citizenship in 1989. Her most famous songs were written by the prolific duo Mogol-Battisti. It was Lucio Battisti who wrote the music for many of her hits including, "Amor Mio", "Io e te da soli" and "Insieme".

After retiring from public appearances by the end of 1978 she continued to release albums on a yearly basis, usually featured on the top 10 charts in Italy with the new single releases. Recent releases include duets with Fabrizio de André and Adriano Celentano.

2. Mina was an instrumental post-disco band from Germany. They've had two albums released and a remix compilation before splitting up for good.

3. MiNa (Switzerland), a side project of Luk Zimmermann and Jaël Krebs, both members of Lunik. They released the album Playground Princess (2007).

4. Mina (aka "Shin Mina") is a Korean singer who was first a back-dancer for various Korean Pop Artists (Park Jin-Young, and Park Ji-Yoon to name a few). She initially found instant fame as the "World Cup Girl", as photographers noticed her beauty and immediately became the center of attention world-wide over-night. Pictures of her with the "Be The Reds!" bandanna around her chest and the Korean flag used as a skirt were beamed around the world, and she received her 15 minutes of fame. Desiring to elongate that fame, she quickly signed a record deal with J-Entercom Entertainment (labelmates include WAX, JADU, Kim Gun-Mo, Lee Ssang, and Double K) and released her first album, Rendezvous, in the fall of 2002. Although going for the sexy image that was popular at the time (with the single "전화받어" (Answer The Phone) (a cover of a K.I.S.S. song, who were also signed to the label before their break-up), the album failed to sell many copies. She quickly disappeared from the industry but returned in the summer of 2004 with her second album Re:turn 2 Mina. This album proved to be a bit more popular, as her single "돌아" (Turn) caught the attention of the Korean public; it was also supported with live-vocal performances. (JiNi, the main singer from K.I.S.S., contributed uncredited vocals to Mina's album.[citation needed])

Due to internal affairs with J-Entercom Entertainment[citation needed], Mina then left her first record company, and signed with EMI Korea for her third album. Her third album Kiss Kiss came in the fall of 2005 with an even sexier image. Mina trained in Europe in order to belly dance and made her music video for her title track there as well. The cover of the Turkish song, though, failed badly, with the album selling less than 10 000 copies. She has since released an English single for the European market, even going as far as making a MySpace page for the single. However, she has remained in Korea and promoted her poorly-received last single Fly High during the 2006 FIFA World Cup, a tribute to the competition that started her career. At the time, she also released a nude photo album to "inspire" the Korean athletes (note: contains censored picture).

Her fourth album was released in July 2007. Her first single, "Look", features Ak'sent. Because of her relatively late debut, she initially claimed that she was born in 1978. As rumours of her real age began to spread, she eventually admitted that she was born in 1972 and apologized for lying about it for so long.

5. Mina is a German singer.

6. Mina is a Lithuanian rapper.

7. Mina (酒井美直, Mina Sakai) is a Japanese musician and singer. At age 16, she was inspired by a music and dance performance of native Canadians to take pride in her Ainu heritage, and formed the group Ainu Rebels, which mixed traditional Ainu song/dance/fashion with hip-hop elements, in 2006. In 2009, she collaborated with composer Masashi Hamauzu (浜渦正志) to perform vocals for the Final Fantasy XIII soundtrack, and since 2011 has been recording and touring with Hamauzu's band IMERUAT (meaning "lightning" in the Ainu language and possibly inspired by the main character of Final Fantasy XIII) as the vocalist and player of traditional instruments.

8.Mina (Greek : Μίνα Γιαννοπούλου) is a greek singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist.
Her first contact with music was at the age of 5 when she started piano lessons and music theory. In her tweens she attended a music-oriented High School where she had the chance to discover more musical instruments as well as to play and sing in ensembles of various styles from folk/traditional to European Classical. She studied harmony, counterpoint and fugue. Her passion and direction towards singing however came as a byproduct of her decision to take formal vocal lessons at her late teens.A few years later she got her singing diploma while at the same time working at the National Opera as a choirist (Operette).
During her vocal training, she studied under important Opera singers/teachers such as Dimitri Kavrakos, Aris Christofellis, Cheryl Studer, Christian Rousset and Natalie Karl.
Her classical training aside, Mina was always into rock and metal music so she constantly found herself treading between those two seemingly opposite styles which she always strived to combine; something that became a reality when she started working on more modern styles finally developing her signaturesinging technique which makes her able to deliver rich, delicate dark colored tone, jazzy, raspy, even whistle registered or full, rock, powerhouse vocals in a range of 3.5 octaves.

In 2010, Mina founded (and was the main composer and lyricist of) the band The Rain I Bleed. Their album Narcissistgot released on August 12th, 2011 by Twilight Zone Records.

After leaving The Rain I Bleed for a chance to further expand her studies in Germany and spending almost 2 years in Stuttgart studying, Mina founded a new melodic project which is soon to release its first single in January, 2014 on ML Records.

9. A Japanese doujin artist.

10. A Vietnamese singer.

11. An Ecuadorian singer. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.