Amphibious

Amphibious is the second solo studio album by Melissa Evans. her debut album ME (1999) Was a modest success in europe, and achieved minor success oversees in the americas. she had attempted to make a more contemporary Electronica-Pop-Art fusion album and was disappointed in the results. she began recording Amphibious with many diffrent sounds in mind. "i think i was rather sick of typical pop songs on the radio ya know? they were catchy but it was all one note, Amphibious is many flavors all on one album and thats why i liked it." Amphibious has elements ranging from Hard Techno to Ambient to Worldbeat.

## Background

ME had been a modest hit, it sold approximately 3 million copies worldwide. Melissa was satisfied with the level of success feeling no need to get any bigger. her label, Maverick, However felt there was more places Melissa could go commercially. Madonna attempted to convince her to do another Pop oriented effort but Melissa refused. instead, Melissa agreed to work with world famous singer-songwriter-producer Mystaire. she first recorded music with her usual producers like Nelee Hooper in Spring 2000 and did about 15 songs. she then flew out to Germany in August 2000 and worked closely with him. she and him Recorded over 40 songs together but only 5 made the album cut. after the sessions finished in Early January 2001. Melissa felt there was still missing materiel that Nellee and Mystaire could not help her make. she returned to London and wrote a few more songs and collaborated with famed Trip Hop Producer 3D to produce the track I Promise. she in all is estimated to have made close to 100 songs for the Amphibious album and only 10 songs made the standard Edition track listing.

## Promotion

Symbiotic was the lead single that was officially released on April 28, 2001. a 30 second clip of the demo version had made its way to Napster in February 2001 under the title "Flow" and the press hyped the song up. when it was finally released it became Melissa's most popular song in weeks. in the UK Symbiotic managed to debut at #3 and climb to #1 the following week. it became certified platinum and remained on the UK charts for an astounding 26 weeks. it was also an unexpected success in America. it only had limited promo CDs issued to alternative Radio, but following the UK success, it was issued to Rhythmic and Top 40 Radio as well on May 30. It even saw a Maxi Single CD release to retailers in June. because of this, Symbiotic managed to enter the Hot 100 in May 2001 at 99. after 7 weeks it reached a peak position of 66. it is Melissa's highest charting single in the United States. she appeared on SNL, Top of the Pops and many other TV Shows to promote the song. Vega was the second single, released on June 29, 2001. just one week before Amphibious' release. it was performed in a special concert in Helsinki the day before Amphibious was released in which she performed all the songs from her upcoming album in addition to 3 songs from her debut and a cover. Vega performed similarly to Symbiotic. it reached the top 10 in the UK and was third number one single in Finland. in the United states it managed to Chart on the Hot 100 at 83, in August, Melissa embarked on her first world tour with the Amphibian Tour (2001-2002). it was originally only supposed to be a short 5 month tour but following the September 11 attacks all of the American dates were postponed to early 2002, Melissa decided to add on new dates to places she hadn't visited yet like South Africa and China. in addition to a second set of European and Brazilian Shows. Rise of Spirit was released as the third single off Amphibious and while not as successful as the previous singles still managed to peak at 29 on the UK singles chart and reach 6 on the Finland charts. Glosong was released as the fourth single in March 2002, it's music video was banned on MTV due to it featuring Melissa naked with another woman. something she would later call "sexist and homophobic". it still managed to chart in the UK at #36. Original Flame was released in late 2002 and performed mediocrely on the charts in most countries but did reach the top 10 in Spain. Always a Way Home was the final single released in February 2003. it was only issued on Melissa's website and in limited quantities to retail stores