History - Discography
It had been almost 10 years since her last album A flower's broken had been published in 1999 and, over the years, Sabrina's comeback became more and more hypothetical. Since the early new millennium, none of her recording projects materialized, frustrating the most patient fans who began to think that she was leading them up the garden path. Indeed, several releases had been announced: the single and the album You and me in 2001/2002, a duet with Ru Paul and another one with Ambra Angiolini in 2002, an album in French featuring a new version of Boys in 2003, the single Born to be alive, the re-recording of her old hits and the single I feel love in 2005, an album in English and then a Bossa nova influenced album in 2006.
After her successful participation in the musical Emozioni which strangely had no follow-up, Sabrina distanced herself from the show business. This choice coincided with the birth of her son in April 2004. No doubt that she then wanted to focus on her family life and give her son all that she had missed as a child. But this doesn't entirely explain why she almost disappeared from 2003 till 2008. This distance was probably due in large part to the discouragement caused by the failure of her successive projects. Indeed, everything had likely turned very complicated: to convince a record company, to surround herself with a team of authors and composers, to record a hit... Kylie Minogue's triumphal comeback shortly gave her new hope, a hope which was quickly disappointed. It's actually thanks to the support of her near relatives and her fans who never forgot her even when she stopped giving news that Sabrina would finally decide to release the album Erase / Rewind Official Remix in 2008.
But the way was long even if she never actually remained inactive. Indeed, she played in 2 movies: Colori (2004) and D (2006). Moreover, from 2005 onwards, Sabrina made a lot of performances in gay Clubs and participated in several concerts gathering stars of the 80s in Italy. But her career as a recording artist was put on hold. Till the early 2000s, she had hoped to release an album that could bring her back to the top of the charts. But, little by little, she accepted the idea that this would be mostly impossible. Nevertheless, if her golden years were gone, she thought she still had a lot to share with her fans and, contrary to many Italian singers who had been successful in the 80s, Sabrina wasn't ready to do anything to generate publicity (reality shows, scandals…). She just wanted to be a mother and a singer. That's why she accepted her 80s iconic status without sadness or frustration, especially as her private life was very satisfying and compensated all the regrets she had had during her career. As soon as she accepted this, many projects unlocked and her career restarted as if by magic. The trigger was her participation, from 2007 on, in the tour RFM party 80 which was very successful in France. This event awakened the interest of the Italian media which had somewhat abandoned her during the recent years. Besides, Sabrina was interviewed again frequently on Spanish TV and did some performances in some other countries: Portugal, Eastern Europe etc. All this probably restored her confidence and the idea intended in 2005 to release a Best of album reappeared. As Sabrina couldn't use the original versions of her early hits (1986-92), she decided to re-record them with Andrea T. Mendoza who had written the arrangements for Born to be alive in 2004.
During the album sessions, Sabrina started to think about the perfect lead-single. In 2005, My chico had been an obvious choice but she was now convinced that she had to come back with a "new" song. She thus decided to make a dance cover version of Erase / Rewind, The Cardigans' hit from 1998. If this choice was a bit surprising, the title of this song perfectly fitted the situation in which Sabrina's career was then: back to her past, the 80s. The song was premiered on May 2nd, 2008 on the set of the Spanish TV show Luar. A few days later, on May 17th, Sabrina met some fans before the concert RFM party at Le Stade de France in Paris and confirmed that she was recording a new album to be released in September and indicated the songs she had selected.
If a European release was planned, Sabrina still had some doubts about a release for the Italian market. But in August, in an interview to the Italian magazine Eva, Sabrina gave some precisions about the album and reassured the fans. Erase / Rewind would be a double album featuring the re-recording of her main hits and a selection of previously unreleased material. This time, the release wasn't canceled or delayed and the album was available on October 3rd, 2008 after the publication of the tracklist on October 1st and the post of several tracks on Sabrina's Myspace on October 2nd.
The CD1 which was entirely produced by Sabrina, featured her international singles from 86 to 89 (Sexy girl, Boys, Hot girl, All of me, My chico, Like a yo yo, Gringo) as well as two songs published as single in some countries: Funky girl (in Italy) and Sex (in Italy and Scandinavia). Besides, Sabrina decided to include a brief selection of her 90s singles in original version (Angel boy and I love you-remix) but omitted the singles from the albums Over the pop and Maschio dove sei. This disc also featured two new cover versions: Born to be alive (actually recorded in 2004) and Erase / rewind.
The CD2 (produced by Sabrina and Enrico Monti) contained a selection of pop/rock songs recorded by Sabrina in 92-94 and which were planned to feature on the album Rockawillie which had been finally abandoned. The fans already knew some of them, either because Sabrina had sang some of them on TV (Skin on skin, Mama said, You lied to me…) or because some others had been translated into Italian for the album Maschio dove sei. But most of them were unknown to the fans. For those reasons, the second disc was the most interesting part on this album (if you want to know more about the recording of those songs, go to Maschio dove sei Release history).
In Italy, this release was accompanied with an important promotion in the press and on TV. Indeed, Sabrina sang several songs in edit version or performed a medley featuring All of me, My chico, Sexy girl and Like yo yo). Unfortunately, she couldn't promote this album in France as her participation in the tour RFM party 80 was temporarily interrupted because of a misunderstanding with the production.
In late November, the album was also released by the German label ZYX paving the way for its distribution in some Eastern and Northern countries. The promotion of the album was boosted on Internet with the post of the video Erase / rewind at the end of November 2008, but also on stage as Sabrina participated in numerous 80s concerts over Europe, including Russia (in the Olympic Stadium in Moscow, where she had sung 20 years before), a country where a single disc edition of the album was also published (as well as a bootleg featuring only mp3 tracks). The promotion of the album continued for almost a year, until the (late) release of the Erase / Rewind maxi CD in October 2009.