THE CHILDHOOD

There is a famous saying that especially talented people have been "kissed by the Muse". Pandora a.k.a. Anneli Magnusson at least was singing before she could talk. "My mother has told me that it was my father who discovered my musical talent. I was still a baby at the time - I was already singing melodies then, long before I could speak."

Her childhood was characterized by a love of music. Pandora's parents lived with their 5 children in Björkbacken, a small village in central Sweden. In the family's living room there was always a guitar hanging on the wall and in the corner stood an imposing electric organ. "When I was about nine years old I began making music at home with my brother.

We lived in a fairly remote area of the country and there were very few children to play with in the afternoons, so we had plenty of time to make music."

INFLUENCES

Pandora discovered contemporary rock and pop music in all its facets. She began to like the folk songs of the likes of Bob Dylan and adored the lascivious guitar-playing and blues-orientated voice of Eric Clapton. Her greatest idol however was always Mark Knopfler. "I just loved the Dire Straits song 'Sultans Of Swing'.

My older brothers and sisters would listen to the album and I really came to love that particular song. I would sit in my room and try to copy the solo on my acoustic guitar. You can imagine how difficult that was."

When she was fourteen, the dedicated vegetarian occasionally performed Bob Dylan and Cat Stevens songs in a nearby cafe, which brought her first-hand experience of performing "live".

Some time later she went in search of people on the same wavelength and sang funk, soul and gospel songs in various bands.

TEENAGE PERIOD

At the age of sixteen Pandora began to study classical vocal technique, classical guitar and theory of music at the College of Music in Västerås, a town not far from Stockholm.

Today she says that it was especially the atmosphere at that college which was so good for her and influenced her in a lasting way. It was there that she experienced living, seemingly limitless creativity. "All of the students had the same passion for music, and I was able to play with really brilliant people.

That was exactly what I had always wanted all my life. I learned how to compose there, to read music and to understand the theoretical basics. However, I did not particularly enjoy music theory, because it seemed to me to take away much of the necessary spontaneity needed in music."

During this period, she was introduced to Hit Vision, the three producers Martin Ankelius, Peter Johansson and Henrik Andersson, who were looking for a suitable female singer for their melodic dance music compositions. The music college recommended their student Pandora, who turned out to be the ideal candidate to perform the trio's ideas of contemporary pop music.

THE FIRST ALBUM

Pandora's commercial career finally began in the winter of 1993/94. In autumn 1993 she signed a contract with a Swedish record company and released her debut single "Trust Me", which went straight into the Swedish charts.

Written and produced by Sir Martin & The Dr. Maxx Family, "Trust Me" became the best-selling local single of the year and went gold, thereby exceeding the achievements of Ace of Base, among others.

The corresponding album, "One Of A Kind", was released in October 1993, bringing the singer further fame and achieving gold status in both Sweden and Finland - making Pandora the best-selling dance act in Scandinavia.

THE FOLLOW-UP ALBUM

Two years later Pandora landed yet another gold disc with her follow-up album "Tell The World". In Scandinavia sales of the album again exceeded the 100,000 mark. In addition, Japanese audiences turned out to be very enthusiastic about Pandora. "Tell The World" selling more than 1 million albums in Asia alone.

Japan Radio Hit Reward.

The song Tell the world was #1 six months on ZIP FM in Nagoya!
A record for the station.

THE THIRD ALBUM-WOLRD WIDE DEAL WITH UNIVERSAL GERMANY

Pandora and her ex husband moves to an old mansion on the countryside outside Kungsör. They build their own musicstudio to make the recordings easier. Her third album "Changes" was Pandora's worldwide debut release with her new record company Universal Music. Sticking to the motto "never change a winning team", Pandora once again collaborated with her creative trio of Ankelius/Andersson/Johansson and the result was this brilliant album, packed full of great dance tunes, which sold more than 500,000 copies in Japan and went platinum there.

What's more, the English "Metro" producer team, which was responsible for Gina G.'s international success, contributed the remix for three songs and two new titles to the European version of the album, which then went gold in Finland with the singles taken from the album reaching the Top Ten of the Finnish charts.

THE FOURTH ALBUM

Pandora went on tour through Scandinavia in the spring and summer of 1997 and did her first 2-week live tour through the main cities of Japan, where she always played to sell-out venues. The Japanese loved her!

Then along came the next long-player "This Could Be Heaven", a fine collection of fourteen dance and up-tempo tracks, which went platinum in Japan within six weeks!
Yet again produced mainly by her long-term partners, Hit Vision, "Metro Productions", and this time also Mats Nyman. "This Could Be Heaven" set a new course in Pandora's career. For the first time, she had written three of the songs herself, arranged and produced by songwriter Mats Nyman, the keyboarder with Pandora's live band.

1998 - OLYMPIC SONG & AUSTRALIAN TOUR

When Pandora recorded and released the official German TV ARD Olympic song "Spirit To Win" in 1998 for the Winter Olympics in Nagano her best-of album "Pandora's Hit Box" was released, also in 1998.

In September 1998 Universal Australia released the Pandora single "A Little Bit", which went platinum in 1999. As a result of this fantastic success in such a far-away place, Pandora went Down Under for the first time in her life, where she played at seventeen clubs in nine days in all the big cities (Sydney, Adelaide, Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane) and later released an "Australia only" album - entitled "Blue",

MORE ROCK ORIENTATED PANDORA

At the beginning of 1999 there followed the next studio album "Breathe", which due to unforeseen circumstances was only released in Japan.

This was a great shame, as "Breathe" presented a new, more rockorientated Pandora, which was partly a result of working together with ex-Europe guitarist Kee Marcello. Since she started to sing rock as a teenager she felt a need of expressing that side of her but mixed with the right dance beats made by the producer Daniel Papalexis.

HER SEVENTH ALBUM

Her seventh album entitled "No Regrets", was recorded between August and November 1999 and was released in February 2000 in Japan. Because of all the hazel around the merge between Universal and Polygram the album was never released anywhere else even though that was the plan.

An album which is again dedicated more to dance rhythms and yet another result of Pandora's fantastic collaboration with people like Kee Marcello, Mats Nyman, Metro and Papalexis. Pandora is particularly happy that Metro is again on board, with the team's recent successes in landing mega-hits for Cher ("Believe") Celine Dion, Tina Turner etc.

On "No Regrets" Pandora has once again contributed some of her own songs. On "Close To You" she can be heard playing the guitar for the first time on her own album."Close To You" was written as a poem written by the Swedish journalist Björn Stenvall, which Pandora arranged for the guitar; "Be My Man", produced by Papalexis, the tune which was written by Katharina Lass but with new lyrics from Pandora; the track "Midnight Sun", Pandora's homage to the winter and almost an advertising song for her homeland ...and “No Regrets” the title song of the album.

TROUBLES WITH KYLIE MINOUGE

An interesting point is the song “On A Night Like This”. It was written during the recordings in the studio for Pandora. About six months later she started to get mails from fans on her homepage saying; how come Kylie Minouge has released your song?

Because of different contractual circumstances the writers had giving it both to Kylie and another artist called Ana Vissi from Greece. That created some troubles for Pandora for a while and the result was that both Pandora and Ana lost the game.

ALBUM WITH TROUBLES

The album “A Little Closer” was born during the fall 2000 and it was released on Universal in Japan in February 2001. “It was a big struggle from day one”; she says. “I always use to have three writing    /producing teams involved to be able to finish the record within four months. That’s how I have to work to keep the “one record a year” tradition; she explains”. 

A song worth mentioning in particularly is “Every Second Beat”. It’s the first time Pandora does a duet on a record. She asked Kee to write a duet for her to make this album a little different comparing to the other ones. “He asked me whom I wanted to sing with and I answered with a smile; Eric Martin from MR. Big! I adore his voice but I said it most as a joke since I thought it would be impossible; she continues”. 

This is again another up-tempo Pandora album but with a stronger mix of club tracks, pop songs, some gospel influences and 2 step. Kee Marcello is the man behind the tougher rave beats on the album and Mats Nyman is slicker in his productions. A for Pandora new writer is Tomas Jansson and his colleague Leif Sundin. They wrote one song on the album. 

The day before Christmas the album was ready to be sent off to Japan and if it wouldn’t have snowed that much, and if she had switched to winter tires or if the plane could have landed so the taxi didn’t have to go all the way to Stockholm . . .and cost a fortune. She would have made it in exact time, so she made it only one day late.