Back on the Threshold of a Dream
2004-11-24

This article was in the JbHi magazine and the corresponding website- www.musicaustraliaguide.com

TINA ARENA
She knows what the Australian idol contestants go through. She´s been replaced by Delta in more ways than one, but tina is celebrating 10 years of success with a greatest Hits album and tour. And the next big adventure beckons.

Tina Arena - Back on the Threshold of a Dream
11th November 2004

Tina Arena is touring Australia to support her latest album ‘Greatest Hits 1994-2004’. These kind of releases often represent a turning point in an artist’s career, but never as significantly as in Tina’s case. This album is a full stop to an entire era in Tina’s career, a quiet and proud goodbye to the Australian record company who shared in that era. Once Tina was the darling of Sony Australia. Delta Goodrem has taken her place. Sony have decided to let Tina go, and without rancor she’s saying farewell and moving on.

‘Greatest Hits 1994-2004’ represents an era in Tina Arena’s life where after years of shedding the weight of having been the “little girl” with the big voice in Young Talent Time, Tina had fought her way through. She’d had one shot at an adult recording career, as a dance diva. Her arrival at Sony represented another chance, her “last” chance. Sony even asked whether she shouldn’t make a complete break and change her name. She didn’t do that, but knew what an important moment this was, and nearly suffered a breakdown on the way to the US to record what became ‘Don’t Ask’, until Delta’s ‘Innocent Eyes’, the biggest selling album ever by an Australian female.

International recognition followed. Had she been prepared to do it, she could have become the “new” Celine Dion or Mariah Carey. Sony America was ready to take her there. But today, a reflective Tina Area admits her heart wasn’t in it. “I was never comfortable in America. I wasn’t comfortable with what all that wanted from me”. One thing you’ll always get from Tina is honesty. Instead she found an international toehold on her own terms.

Today Tina is one of the most popular singing stars in France. A huge star. There, she’s the Australian with the big voice who can sing in French. The rest of Europe beckons. Today Tina is back in the same position she was in before the music on ‘Greatest Hits 1994-2004’. She’s on the threshold of her next “last” chance. Right now, she doesn’t exactly know what’s ahead of her, but she knows she’s put in all the hard yards, served all the apprenticeships leading up to this moment. She’s ready to grab it. Like she did when she relaunched herself with the single ‘Chains’. Every performance of that song was like her life depended on it. Maybe it did.

Through everything Tina Arena has landed on her feet personally. She knows who she is. She lives in London, away from the European spotlight, in order to be able to live an ordinary existence. She makes regular trips back home to Australia, to be with family and friends, the people who’ve been with her throughout everything and keep her grounded.

– Ed.Nimmervoll

[Thanks to Dannii for finding this article]