Alex Parks

Alexandra Rebecca Parks (born 26 July 1984) is an English singer-songwriter. Parks was entered into the BBC Television programme, Fame Academy by her father. It was a show that she went on to win. Soon after winning Fame Academy, she released her first album entitled Introduction, which went double platinum in the United Kingdom and gold in several other European countries. In 2005 she released her second album, Honesty. Parks was dropped by her label, Polydor, on 8 February 2006. Parks claimed that the move was a mutual decision and that things had not worked out.[1]

Alex Parks
Birth nameAlexandra Rebecca Parks
Born (1984-07-26) 26 July 1984
OriginMount Hawke, Cornwall, England
GenresFolk-pop, alternative, indie rock
Years active2003–2006
LabelsPolydor (2003–2006)

Biography

Parks was born in July 1984 and was raised in the village of Mount Hawke, Cornwall. She is the youngest of four siblings. [2]

Mount Hawke is a tiny village near Truro in Cornwall, with two shops, a church, a pub and a school. Because the village is so small, everyone knows each other. This is where Parks spent her formative years, climbing trees, riding her bike and heading up the coast to St Agnes were there was a slightly younger community of surfers.

Parks mum and dad liked Gene Pitney and Meat Loaf and her brothers played techno and Bros. At school, Alex wanted to be an art teacher, but by the time it came to doing A-levels she opted for theatre studies, going to college at The Hub in St Austell, and learning theory, dance, acrobatics and clowning.

Her first musical success had been winning fifty pounds at a singing competition in a local bar, but her teenage musical education really came via members of the local folk band One Trick Pony. Dave from the band encouraged Parks to sing and taught her chords on the guitar. Parks began fronting the band and spent most of her time playing cover songs. Dave introduced Parks to artists such as Joni Mitchell, Ani Di Franco and Michelle Branch and they began creating cover versions of the artists songs.

During the time of her GCSE's, Parks was living with the band, practicing every night and gigging on weekends, and failed to do any revision. For two years Parks fronted the band, playing in bars around Cornwall, but with no obvious route to the local scene, the momentum of the band gradually ran down, leaving Parks in her bedroom with a four-track tape machine and a bunch of her own songs-in-progress.

Parks initially planned to move to Amsterdam to learn the art of clowning, but her career path changed dramatically when her father submitted an application for the second season of the BBC Television series Fame Academy.

Parks is gay and before entering Fame Academy had a long-term girlfriend from Newquay. [2][3][4][5]

Fame Academy

Having been prompted by her father to take part in auditions for the show, which threw her in amongst 12,000 hopefuls, the 18-year-old Alex found herself the youngest student chosen for the two-month stay at Witanhurst House in north London.

The final showdown between Parks and Alistair Griffin was screened live and generated so many angry messages from viewers after Daniel Bedingfield who duetted with both finalists, made his feelings clear by urging viewers that they should "just vote for Alex". This outburst by Bedingfield led to claims of favouritism. The BBC was forced to close down the Points of View message boards as negative messages just flooded in the board. Bedingfield made a public apology to Griffin for his behaviour and outburst. The actual voting figures have never been publicly released. Parks went on to win the show.

Recording career

Her song "Maybe That's What It Takes" was released on 17 November 2003 and peaked at number 3 in the UK Singles Chart the following week.[6] Her debut album Introduction was subsequently released and sold over 500,000 copies. She expressed an interest in a recording career.[7]

Honesty was eventually released in October 2005, preceded by the lead single, "Looking For Water", in October 2005. The album peaked at No. 24 in the UK Albums Chart.[6]

After being dropped by her label, Polydor, Parks wrote a statement to her fans on her official website stating that she had almost no support from the media – hardly any coverage on the radio, TV or in the press and that she was disappointed in how things had turned out. She was not sure whether she was not promoted well enough because they didn't like her music, her personally or the fact she had become famous via a reality TV programme.[1]

In 2013 she told her fans she would like to be known as Lexi and said she hoped to be recording again by the end of the year. In 2014, she was spotted at Music Sales Film & TV Songwriters Week in London with Joe McElderry from The X Factor.

Parks has been inactive in music since 2006 and her whareabouts seem intentionally unknown.[8] [9][10]

Discography

Studio albums
Year Album Chart positions Sales and certification
UK[6] Ireland
2003 Introduction
  • Released: November 24, 2003
  • Label: Polydor
  • Formats: CD
5
54
 BPI sales: 600,000+
BPI certification: 2x Platinum
Also went Gold in Italy, Germany, Greece and Australia among others.
2005 Honesty
  • Released: October 24, 2005
  • Label: Polydor
  • Formats: CD
24
 —
 BPI sales: 50,000+
" — " denotes albums that were released but did not chart.

Singles
Year Title Album Chart positions
UK[6] Ireland
2003 "Maybe That's What It Takes" Introduction 3 26
2004 "Cry" 13 32
2005 "Looking for Water"1 Honesty  —  —
2006 "Honesty" 56  —

1 On downloads only

See also

References
  1. Alex Parks Dropped From Polydor, retrieved 3 June 2020
  2. Warn, Sarah (November 2003). "The Success of the UK's Alex Parks". AfterEllen.com. Archived from the original on 11 June 2010. Retrieved 27 January 2010.
  3. "Alex Parks — Biography", BBC, November 2003, retrieved 27 January 2010
  4. Charlie Porter. "Interview: Alex Parks from Fame Academy | Music". The Guardian. Retrieved 6 April 2020.
  5. "Alex Parks: Super Slacker". The Independent. 7 February 2004. Retrieved 6 April 2020.
  6. Roberts, David (2006). British Hit Singles & Albums (19th ed.). London: Guinness World Records Limited. p. 417. ISBN 1-904994-10-5.
  7. "Alex's life after Fame Academy". News.bbc.co.uk. 1 January 2004. Retrieved 24 March 2019.
  8. Fame Academy- Where are they now, retrieved 8 October 2018
  9. What are the fame academy stars upto?, retrieved 4 August 2016
  10. Trewhela, Lee (8 December 2017). "What happened to Alex Parks and other reality TV stars from Cornwall?". Cornwalllive.com. Retrieved 24 March 2019.
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