This is Biography Nick Kamen he was born (Harlow, 15 April 1962 – London, 4 May 2021), was a British singer, musician, and model. In 1984 Ray Petri used a photo of Kamen for the cover of The Face magazine, the shot showed Nick wearing a ski cap, an orange turtleneck sweater, and Ray-Ban sunglasses: his lips were bleached with zinc and one eyebrow was shaded yellow. Ironically, the words “Hot” hovered over him, despite a frigid London winter. Nick Kamen reached notoriety in 1985 thanks to a television commercial of Levi’s in which, after entering a laundry room, he took off his jeans and t-shirt and remained quietly in his boxer shorts reading the newspaper among other people. From there he was soon noticed by the American singer Madonna, who realized the potential of both singing and image and, together with producer Stephen Bray, in 1986 decided to produce a song written by herself, Each Time You Break My Heart. The publication of the single gave rise to a sales success, placing it at number five in the British charts and among the top ten positions in the main charts of almost all European countries. A remixed version by Shep Pettibone also entered the charts in the United States and Canada.
In 1987 he released his first album, simply titled Nick Kamen. The album was characterized by covers of great artists of soul and rhythm and blues, including Win Your Love, a song recorded by Sam Cooke in 1958, and Loving You Is Sweeter Than Ever, an updated version of an old song by the Four Tops, which was released as the second single. Kame was consecrated as a pop music icon of that period. His undoubted physical strength and his pleasant appearance contributed to creating an image that seemed to be made on purpose to attract the attention of teenagers, especially females. Moreover, on many occasions Kamen sported the fifties look like Elvis Presley, and in many promotional photos that were taken of him, they tried to highlight and accentuate as much as possible the physical resemblance and attitude with the “King of Rock and Roll”. From the LP Nick Kamen were extracted two other singles, the slow Come Softly to Me, a remake of a hit of Fleetwoods, a famous American vocal trio in the late fifties, and Nobody Else.
Less than a year after the debut album, in 1988, Us was released, a record mainly recorded in the United States as the previous one, which used the production of Patrick Leonard, former producer of Madonna, and Madonna herself, present in the choruses of the single Tell Me, which was the opener. Other noteworthy singles are Bring Me Your Love, at the opening of the album, and Steal Love, with Anne Dudley of Art of Noise among the musicians. We obtained a particular success in terms of sales in Italy, where the video clips of Tell Me and Bring Me Your Love were passed continuously on all television and radio channels for months. Kamen was in great demand for interviews and appearances. This meant that at the end of 1988 Nick published only for Italy the remix album Loving You, containing the unreleased Don’t Hold out, and rearranged versions of some hits of the first two albums. In 1989 Kamen recorded the song Turn It Up for the soundtrack of the Walt Disney movie Honey, I’ve shrunk the boys by Joe Johnston.
In the 1980s, his relationships with models and actresses Talisa Soto and Tatjana Patitz were reported in the tabloids. The nineties and the withdrawal from the scene followed a period of silence that lasted until 1990, when Kamen returned with a new look and sounds much more mature than the previous, already audible in I Promised Myself, the single that preceded the album Move Until We Fly. The album moved in a new and different direction from the previous ones: melancholic at times (this is especially noticeable in songs like Agony and Ecstasy and You Are) and even liberating (as in Oh How Happy), with a title track of high level.
This work began to show another aspect of the interpreter, deeper, introspective, and far from the typical contaminations of the carefree American pop of the eighties. The other singles extracted were Oh How Happy (in a heterogeneous version), Looking Good Diving, and Agony and Ecstasy. The album had success in Europe, especially in Italy, Germany, Sweden, and the Netherlands. Still, today Move Until We Fly is considered the most complete and mature album of his discography. The single I Promised Myself will in fact be reinterpreted over time by many famous artists and not and will be played on radios throughout Europe, becoming in effect an evergreen.
After a short tour of live concerts in Europe between 1990 and 1991, the Move Until We Fly Tour, Nick Kamen made his return to London taking the right time to set up and record a new work, the fourth of his career. In fact, in 1992 it was the turn of Whatever, Whenever, an album with a sound much closer to British pop, much less electronic than the previous, preceded by the single and video You’re Not the Only One, followed by the single We’ll Never Lose What We Have Found. Despite the meticulous production (the same Kamen wrote, arranged, and produced much of the work), the commercial success was modest and marked the end of Kamen’s musical career, which from 1993 onwards did lose their tracks, except for some fortuitous flash by the paparazzi.
Despite a discrete following by a fanbase and some first unofficial sites that followed him, the singer retired to completely private life, devoting himself mainly to painting, exhibit, and audio and video productions mainly in the independent scene. The press returned to talk about him between 1998 and 2001 for his relationship with the actress and television presenter Amanda De Cadenet, for whom he moved from London to Los Angeles.
He regained public notoriety in 2002 when he appeared – in his last official photo as a model – on the cover of the fashion magazine Vogue; in 2003 the Swedish boyband A*Teens released his version of I Promised Myself, taking the song to the top of the Swedish charts. In the same year, the artist faced grief over the death of her younger brother Barry. In September 2018, through Instagram, a fan page of the singer declared that Nick Kamen was being treated for bone marrow cancer. Nick Kamen died from complications of cancer died at 59 years old
Discography
1987- Nick Kamen
1988- US
1990- MOVE UNTIL WE FLY
1992- WHATEVER, WHENEVER
Collections
1988 — Loving You
1991 — Each Time You Break My Heart — 16 Classic Tracks
2020 — The Complete Collection (box 6 cd)
