Katrina and the Waves

Katrina and the Waves
General information
Genre (s)	pop
founding	1981
resolution	1999
Website	http://www.katw.com/
Founding members
Drums	Alex Cooper
bass	Vince de la Cruz
Vocals , guitar	Katrina Leskanich
guitar	Kimberley Rew

Katrina and the Waves was a British-American band from the 1980s, best known for their hit "Walking on Sunshine" and victory in the 1997 Eurovision Song Contest .

Career

The band was founded in Cambridge in 1981 and was led by the American singer Katrina Leskanich until she left in 1998. The lead guitarist and main songwriter was the Briton Kimberley Rew, who had previously played with the Soft Boys .

Their big breakthrough came in the spring of 1985 with the song "Walking on Sunshine", which became a worldwide hit and is still popular as a "summer hit" in many countries today. As a result of this hit, the group was even nominated for a Grammy for "Best New Artist". Later, a number of other, smaller hits came, especially in the UK.

On May 3, 1997 they won the Eurovision Song Contest for the United Kingdom with the title "Love Shine a Light".

Years after the separation, Katrina Leskanich founded a new band in the hope of being able to build on her success at the Song Contest - but for a different country: in 2005 they took part in the Melodifestival , the Swedish preliminary decision. Originally they were called Katrina and the New Wave , but the displeasure of the previous band members led to an abrupt name change. As Katrina and the Nameless , they reached third place in the fourth semifinals with the song "As if tomorrow will never come" written by Thomas G: son and thus qualified not for the final, but for the "second chance" round, in which they ended up in sixth place and did not reach the final.

Discography

Studio albums

year	title	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes)					Remarks
		DE	AT	CH	UK	US
1985	Katrina and the Waves	DE46 (10 weeks) DE	-	-	UK28 (6 weeks) UK	US25 (48 weeks) US	First published: March 1985
1986	Waves	-	-	-	UK70 (1 week) UK	-	First published: May 1986
1989	Break of Hearts	-	-	-	-	US122 (8 weeks) US	First published: July 1989
1997	Walk on water	-	AT47 (3 weeks) AT	-	-	-	First published: July 1997

More studio albums

• 1983: Shock Horror
• 1983: Katrina and the Waves
• 1984: Katrina and the Waves 2
• 1991: Pet the Tiger
• 1993: Edge of the Land
• 1994: turnaround

Compilations

year	title	Remarks
1997	Walking on Sunshine: The Greatest Hits	First published: November 1997
2000	The Original Recordings 1983-1984	First published: January 2000

Singles

year	Title album	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, album , rankings, weeks, awards, notes)					Remarks
		DE	AT	CH	UK	US
1983	Que Te Quiero Katrina and the Waves	-	-	-	UK84 (3 weeks) UK	US71 (6 weeks) US	First published: December 1983
1985	Walking on Sunshine Katrina and the Waves	DE28 (14 weeks) DE	-	CH14 (7 weeks) CH	UK8th platinum (13 weeks)UK	US9 (21 weeks) US	First published: April 1985
	Red Wine And Whiskey Katrina and the Waves	DE41 (7 weeks) DE	-	-	-	-	First published: July 1985
	Do You Want Crying? Katrina and the Waves	-	-	-	UK96 (2 weeks) UK	US37 (10 weeks) US	First published: July 1985
1986	Is that it? Waves	-	-	-	UK82 (2 weeks) UK	US70 (8 weeks) US	First published: April 1986
	Sun Street Waves	-	-	-	UK22 (9 weeks) UK	-	First published: June 1986
1989	That's the way break of hearts	-	-	-	UK84 (3 weeks) UK	US16 (12 weeks) US	First published: July 1989
	Rock 'n Roll Girl Break of Hearts	-	-	-	UK93 (2 weeks) UK	-	First published: November 1989
1993	Honey Lamb Edge of the Land	DE59 (10 weeks) DE	-	-	-	-	First published: July 1993
1997	Love Shine a Light Walk on Water	DE62 (9 weeks) DE	AT2 (13 weeks) AT	CH26 (12 weeks) CH	UK3 silver (12 weeks)UK	-	First published: April 1997

Awards for music sales

Golden record  Denmark 2019: for the single Walking on Sunshine  Italy 2018: for the single Walking on Sunshine  Canada 1985: for the single Walking on Sunshine 1986: for the album Waves  Norway 1997: for the single Love Shine a Light Platinum record  Canada 1985: for the album Katrina and the Waves

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

Country / Region	silver	gold	platinum	Sales	swell
Awards for music sales (country / region, awards, sales, sources)
Denmark (IFPI)	-	gold1	-	45,000	ifpi.dk
Italy (FIMI)	-	gold1	-	25,000	fimi.it
Canada (MC)	-	2 × gold2	platinum1	200,000	musiccanada.com
Norway (IFPI)	-	gold1	-	5,000	ifpi.no
United Kingdom (BPI)	silver1	-	platinum1	800,000	bpi.co.uk
All in all	silver1	5 × gold5	2 × platinum2

swell

1. ↑ https://www.ndr.de/ndr1niedersachsen/sendung/Katrina-And-The-Waves-Walking-On-Sunshine,katrinaandthewaves106.html
2. ↑ The first 4 semi-finals ( Memento from March 16, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) (English)
3. ↑ ^{a b} Chart sources: DE AT CH UK US
4. ↑ Music Sales Awards: UK

Web links

• Official website
• Katrina and the Waves at Discogs (English)