They Must Have Sent You From Heaven...

Time now for part 5 of the career of Sandra (click here for previous parts).

Sandra's last studio album was in 1992. In 1995 (while pregnant with twins), Sandra recorded and released her sixt album, Fading Shades. The album saw a new writer/producer Jens Gad (who Sandra still works with today) working alongside Michael Cretu.

The album featured a cover version of "Nights in White Satin" by The Moody Blues. It became the first single from the album in March 1995 and while it became a hit in Europe and Australia it charted at just  #86 in Germany. The music video showed only close-ups of Sandra's face as she was heavily pregnant at the time. 

The album followed on June 12th and became her least successful album worldwide, charting at #42 in Germany. In retrospect it is not hard to see why - it does include some good songs but overall it is probably her weakest effort. 

The second single release was "Won't Run Away", released in July. Not a good choice for a single in the first place, only made worse by no music video and no promotion. It made no impact on the music charts. 

On 6 July 1995, Sandra gave birth to twin sons Nikita and Sebastian in a Munich hospital. Sandra decided to put her career on hold to raise her children, even going as far as saying that she would no longer record under her name. She felt that there was not really a market for her anymore as she tended to be treated like so many other people that made it big in the 80s: an 80s act (that was apparently supposed to stay there!)

In 1996 Enigma released their third album, which once again included vocals from Sandra - for example on the single "T.N.T For The Brain".






There would be no new releases from Sandra until 1999. A remix of her 1988 hit single "Secret Land" was released as a single from an upcoming remix album. Backed with a new video, the single charted in Germany at #69.



My Favourites was released on June 4th 1999. It was a double disc release with disc 1 featuring remixes of her hits by long-time band companion Peter Ries. Disc 2 featured some of Sandra's personal favourites (mostly from her later albums). The album did very well on the German charts, peaking at #16 in Germany and going Top 20 in several countries in Europe.



In 2000, Enigma released their fourth album, which featured very minimal vocals from Sandra. In the same year Sandra did background vocals on Andru Donalds' (one of Enigma´s main vocalists) single release "Precious Little Diamond". Andru would later co-write one of Sandra's singles ("That's The Way I Am").



In 2001 in was announced that Sandra would return with a brand new album! The first single was a beautiful midtempo track called "Forever". It reached #47 in Germany and was probably my most welcomed comeback of all time.



 

Another single followed in March 2002. It was a cover the Talk Talk song which had been a hit in Europe in the mid 80s. For some reason there was no video made for the track, which peaked at #76 in Germany (but did better in some other European countries).

The album The Wheel Of Time followed on May 17th 2002. It became a big comeback for Sandra in Germany, where the album peaked at #8 and received good reviews. Sandra herself was very happy and surprised by the success of the album. She has recorded most of the album late in the evenings and the middle of the night since she spent her days raising her children. Some of the vocals were one take (including her excellent take on the Depeche Mode single "Free Love" and the albums finals single "I Close My Eyes").

The third single was supposed to be the upbeat "Forgive Me". Promos were sent to radio stations (although very few - I still don't have a copy, since it is very rarely seen and sell for more then $100) but for some reasons the commercial release was cancelled.

Instead, the final single was the ill-advised "I Close My Eyes", released in November. While it is a beautiful song it is very hard to see why it was considered a better choice then "Forgive Me". In any case, the song didn´t do much on the charts (#93 in Germany). There was no music video for the song.

In 2003 the DVD The Complete History was released, featuring all of her music videos. A fabulous release for all the fans, it included video interviews with Sandra commenting on the every single video.

To be continued...