Santamaria

Although not the first Euro-dance project to come out of Portugal, Santamaria are certainly not only the most successful, but also the most consistent. To their credit, Santamaria have sold more than 500,000 albums in Portugal during a career spanning roughly a decade. They endured the bile of music critics and even a constant lack of airplay on the biggest Portuguese radio stations to become one of the most popular acts in the country. Formed in Cascais (a coastal city of the Lisbon metropolis) in 1997, Santamaria are the brainchild of producers Luís Marante and Tony Lemos and lead singer Filipa, Lemos' sister. At the time, Lemos was already an experienced studio man, having first emerged on the music scene in a duo with Filipa called Tó & Marlene, playing in county fairs during the summer seasons. Later, Filipa joined the short-lived act Taitibitileus, which managed to score a minor novelty hit with the song "O Meu Abião." Longing for a change of pace, the siblings, joined by common friend Marante, started dabbling with Euro-dance, all of them inspired by widely popular acts like Ace of Base, Whigfield, and Corona. Early results were encouraging enough for all three to pursue the project more seriously. Recording enough songs for an album, Santamaria recruited two background singers and dancers, former model Dina Real and Yolanda. They shopped their demo CD around, and independent Portuguese label Vidisco took an interest. Consisting of re-recordings of all the tracks on the demo in more professional settings, debut album Eu Sei, Tu És... was released in early 1998. Boosted by the immensely popular title track (which became their signature song), the album went triple platinum in a year, even in the face of terrible reviews and a lack of airplay by the biggest radio...