Gala (singer)

Gala (2004)

Gala (* 6. September 1975 in Milan as Gala Rizzatto ) is an Italian singer .

Life

Gala Rizzatto grew up in Milan . Her first name refers to Gala Éluard Dalí , the muse of Salvador Dalí . At the age of 17 she moved out of home and went to New York to study at the art academy. During this time she made a name for herself as a photographer in the New York music scene. An Italian DJ got her a record deal in exchange for a photograph. She then recorded the song Freed from Desire and released it in 1996 on an Italian label. Freed from Desire developed into a European hit and a Eurodance classic. In France and Belgium , the single reached number one in the British charts and her native Italy number two on the charts. In total, more than six million units of the single were sold, over 750,000 of them in France alone, for which it received a diamond award .

Gala was named Best Female Artist at the 1998 Celebration of Female Artists (COFA) in Great Britain. In the same year she received the best dance video award from the MOBO Awards (Music of Black Origin).

While interest quickly waned in the rest of Europe, she was able to build on the success with Let a Boy Cry and Come into My Life in Belgium and southern Europe and achieve further number one placements. The album Come into My Life , released at the end of 1997, fell well short of these rankings. Then she took the Prince manager Steve Fargnoli under contract, but there were no further successes.

In 2001 Fargnoli died unexpectedly, she lost her recording contract and returned to New York. Even so, she kept producing music and performing. In 2005 she had one last minor chart success with Faraway in France. The song was also used in a US TV commercial .

More than ten years after her last album, Gala released the album Tough Love on her own label Matriarchy Rechords in 2009 and the single Lose Yourself in Me in 2012 .

Discography

Albums

year	title	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes)					Remarks
		DE	AT	CH	UK	IT
1997	Come into My Life	-	-	-	-	IT33 (7 weeks) IT

More albums

• Tough Love (2009)

Singles

year	Title album	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, album , rankings, weeks, awards, notes)					Remarks
		DE	AT	CH	UK	IT
1996	Everyone Has Inside	-	-	-	-	IT9 (14 weeks) IT
	Freed from Desire Come into My Life	DE14 (27 weeks) DE	AT16 (10 weeks) AT	CH13 (18 weeks) CH	UK2 platinum (15 weeks)UK	IT2 Gold (2020) (21 weeks)IT
1997	Let a Boy Cry Come into My Life	-	-	CH23 (9 weeks) CH	UK11 (8 weeks) UK	IT1 (18 weeks) IT	in the official Italian FIMI charts, which started at this time, the single reached number 4, with a top 10 stay of 7 weeks
	Come into My Life Come into My Life	-	-	-	UK38 (2 weeks) UK	IT3 (8 weeks) IT	in the Italian M&D charts, the single reached the top again
1998	Suddenly Come into My Life	-	-	-	-	IT9 (2 weeks) IT

More singles

• Faraway (2005)
• Tough Love (2009)
• Lose Yourself in Me (2012)

Awards for music sales

Golden record  Germany 2013: for the author participation Love is My Rebellion ( Frida Gold )  France 1998: for the album Come into My Life 1998: for the single Come into My Life Platinum record  Belgium 1997: for the single Let a Boy Cry 1998: for the single Come into My Life  France 1997: for the single Let a Boy Cry  Poland 2019: for the author participation Freed from Desire (Drenchill)

2 × platinum record  Belgium 1997: for the single Freed from Desire Diamond record  France 1997: for the single Freed from Desire

Note: Awards in countries from the chart tables or chart boxes can be found in these.

Country / Region	gold	platinum	diamond	Sales	swell
Awards for music sales (country / region, awards, sales, sources)
Belgium (BEA)	-	4 × platinum4th	-	200,000	ultratop.be
Germany (BVMI)	gold1	-	-	150,000	musikindustrie.de
France (SNEP)	2 × gold2	platinum1	diamond1	1,600,000	infodisc.fr snepmusique.com
Italy (FIMI)	gold1	-	-	35,000	fimi.it
Poland (ZPAV)	-	platinum1	-	20,000	bestsellery.zpav.pl
United Kingdom (BPI)	-	platinum1	-	600,000	bpi.co.uk
All in all	4 × gold4th	7 × platinum7th	diamond1

swell

1. ↑ ^{a b} Ulli Wenger's One Hit Wonder , entry from February 16, 2013
2. ↑ ^{a b} Awards Sources: Sales / France - Great Britain (database searches)
3. ↑ ^{a b} chart sources (singles):
   • Gala in the German charts. In: Official German charts. GfK Entertainment , accessed on October 29, 2015 (DE). 
   • Discography gala. In: Austriancharts.at. Hung Medien, accessed October 29, 2015 (AT). 
   • Discography gala. In: Hitparade.ch . Hung Medien, accessed on October 29, 2015 (CH). 
   • Gala in the UK charts. In: Officialcharts.com. Official Charts Company , accessed October 29, 2015 (UK). 
   • Guido Racca & Chartitalia: Top 100 FIMI Singoli . Lulu , 2013, p. 95 (IT since 1997).
   • M&D chart archive. Musica e dischi , accessed on October 29, 2015 (Italian, paid subscription access; IT until 1997). 
4. ↑ Guido Racca & Chartitalia: Top 100 FIMI album . Lulu, 2013, p. 111 .

Web links

Commons : Gala  collection of images

• Official website
• Gala at Allmusic (English)
• Gala at Discogs (English)