Caro Emerald
In 2007, Caro Emerald was called upon to cut a demo for producers Jan van Wieringen, David Schreurs and Canadian songwriter Vincent Degiorgio. Caro seized the opportunity, and recorded ‘Back It Up’. When she performed the song on a local Dutch TV station a year later, the song exploded onto the scene. Viewers were constantly calling, e-mailing and commenting about that lovely girl with her catchy tune. A low-budget video on YouTube created a similar effect and suddenly, viewers wanted to know where they could buy her music.
However, with only one track on the repertoire, David, Vince, Jan and Caro started working on a full album before releasing anything. Inspired by films and music from the 40s and 50s, they wrote and produced “Deleted Scenes from The Cutting Room Floor”, an exciting, hugely accessible collection of 12 original songs.
The album featured ballroom jazz, cinematic tangos, groovin’ jazz tracks and infectious mambos that sounded as if they were recorded in the golden age of Hollywood. However, the smoking beats, catchy songs and inventive production marked Caro out as a present-day phenomenon.
An album with such a distinctive style required its own label approach. Adding Vince’s A&R background to the mix, Schreurs and van Wieringen set up Grandmono Records to release their music and manage the project. It was an overnight success. Debut single ‘Back It Up’ became an instant radio hit in July 2009, and follow up ‘A Night Like This’ went on to reach #1 in the Dutch single charts in January 2010. That same week, Grandmono Records released the highly anticipated ‘Deleted Scenes from The Cutting Room Floor’.
It entered at #1 in the album charts and reached platinum status within 6 weeks. Overall, the album spent 30 weeks at #1, breaking a record set by Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ and selling a stunning 260,000 copies within the year in Holland alone.
The album was then released in many other countries. With a similar effect: so far, ‘Deleted Scenes from The Cutting Room Floor’ is IFPI certified platinum with sales over 1.3 million in Europe (NL 6x Platinum, Poland 2x Platinum, UK Platinum, Germany Platinum, Austria & Switzerland Gold) and has been released in over 40 countries. Caro and her production team received numerous national and international awards, including an MTV EMA award (Best Dutch/Belgian), EBBA award, Goldene Kamera and Echo Award. Caro performed at almost every major radio and TV show in Europe.
