Diana Vickers

Before reaching legal age in her home country, Diana Vickers managed to make herself a musical icon in the UK, thanks to her time during the fifth season of the X-Factor competition in 2008. Vickers, entering the show at a mere sixteen years of age, sailed through the early rounds of the competition with a voice that judge Simon Cowell compared to marmite: noting that people would either love it or hate it. The former turned out to be true as sixteen year old Diana made it through eight rounds of live shows without ever falling into the bottom group; in one week she was given a bye from the competition because of her acute laryngitis. Oddsmakers had Vickers pegged as the winner of the whole competition, however it wasn't meant to be. With the rising success of Alexandra Burke and JLS, Vickers was voted our right before the final round, finishing in fourth place behind Eoghan Quigg. Though Vickers signed onto Syco records with the three people who beat her out in the competition, her record deal was later dropped and Vickers signed with RCA instead. In January 2009 Vickers began working on what would later be her debut album alongside a myriad names and faces such as Ellie Goulding, Starsmith, and Guy Sigsworth. However, the process was a slow one, and Vickers labored over the album for more than a year without any releases to show for it. In April 2010, Vickers finally took the leap to release her first single, "Once", written by Cathy Dennis and EG White. The wait was heavily anticipated, but well received, and Diana's first solo single debuted on the UK singles charts at number one with sales of over 70,000 copies. Less than a month later, Diana's first full-length album hit the market. "Songs From The Tainted Cherry Tree" debuted at number one as well with sales of almost 36,000 copies, making Vickers at eighteen years old a three-time chart-topping recording artist. As a contributor, Vickers also reached number one alongside her X-Factor co-finalists on the Christmas 2008 number one single "Hero". A second single from "Songs From The Tained Cherry Tree", "The Boy Who Murdered Love", will be released in July 2010, thanks to the terrific reception the album and high sales of the first single and album. ~ Matthew Chisling, Rovi