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Daniel Robert Powter (born February 25, 1971) is a Canadian Grammy Award-nominated recording artist. He grew up in Vernon, in the Okanagan Valley region of British Columbia. With few local musical influences, he credits his early exposure to music to his mother, who was a pianist and directed him into music as a child.
Daniel Powter released his debut album "I'm Your Betty" in 2000. The album, limited to a very small print, is considered a collectors item by fans due to its extremely small print run. It contained 10 songs, two of which "More Than I" and "Negative Fashion" were both featured on the television show Higher Ground (TV series).
Daniel Powter's first piano pop single, "Bad Day" debuted not in his home country of Canada, but rather in Europe in mid-2005. It was chosen by Warner Brothers as a submission for commercial production and was subsequently chosen by Coca-Cola as the theme song for an ad campaign in Europe. Additionally, "Bad Day" was used extensively by American Idol in its fifth season. Powter sang the song live at the end of the penultimate show of that season on May 23, 2006. The song achieved heavy airplay in most European countries, and made it as high as number three on the overall European airplay chart. It did best in Germany, where it peaked at number one in national airplay, Ireland where it peaked at #1 on the Singles Chart, in Italy, where it peaked at #1 in the summer of 2005 and has been recently featured on a commercial and in the UK, where it peaked at number two in the singles chart and stayed in the top 10 for 13 weeks. In the United States the song reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 seven weeks after it was released, and also rocketed to number one on the Adult Top 40 and Adult Contemporary charts. It made Powter the first solo Canadian male artist to top the Hot 100 since Bryan Adams in 1995 (with "Have You Ever Really Loved A Woman?"). In Australia, it peaked at number three. The song also reached number 1 in Powter's homeland of Canada. It was fifth place in the British Record of the Year 2005.
On July 2, 2005, Powter performed at the Berlin installment of Live 8, a simultaneous group of concerts in nine countries intended to raise awareness of poverty in Africa and put pressure on world leaders for aid.
On April 1, 2006, he was named the best new artist at the Canadian Juno Awards.
The video for "Bad Day" features actress Samaire Armstrong, best known for her role as Anna on the popular American television show The O.C. with Jason Adelman.
Daniel Powter has a music publishing deal with BMG Music Publishing for France.
Powter was nominated for Breakthrough Act at the BRIT Awards 2006, but failed to win that award.
He was also nominated at the 2006 Billboard Music Awards for Hot 100 single of the year for his hit "Bad Day", but lost. However "Bad Day" was still named Billboard #1 song of the year in 2006. A grammy nomination followed in the pop vocal performance category which went to John Mayer at the ceremony held in Los Angeles in February 2007.
Powter's next singles varied worldwide with "Jimmy Gets High", "Free Loop", and "Lie To Me" all being released in different parts of the world. So far, however, they have failed to match the enormous success of 'Bad Day'.
In the UK, "Free Loop" was released as the follow-up single to "Bad Day". However, Warner Bros. Records' international distributor, WEA failed to realize that "Free Loop" was chart ineligible due to a live version of "Bad Day" being featured as a B-side on the single. "Bad Day" was still in the UK top 40 and due to UK chart rules, an artist cannot have a version of the previous single on the latest one if the previous is still charting. However, if it had charted it would have been a top 20 hit, in the midweek charts it was at number 16. Consequently, the next UK single which was chart eligible was "Lie To Me", which was an abysmal flop, completely missing the top 75. "Lie To Me" eventually charted at #92 in the UK because of distribution problems and lack of promotion due to extensive promotion of "Bad Day" in the US.
"Jimmy Gets High" was highly speculated to be the fourth single from the album in the UK, with an expected release set for October 2006 however, despite the video circulating on music channels and the song receiving good airplay, it was eventually not released due to US Commitments. In the US, "Free Loop" was the album's second single but failed to make the Hot 100 and barely broke the Adult Contemporary Top 30; during the brief chart tenure of "Free Loop", "Bad Day" was still sitting at #2 AC behind Natasha Bedingfield's "Unwritten." A new track called "Love You Lately" was now rumoured to be his next US and UK single and whilst a video was filmed, it was never released to music channels or radio stations so now release has yet been confirmed. A re-release of his first mainstream album 'Daniel Powter' has been speculated alongside the release of two new tracks 'Love You Lately' and 'Back Home In Alabama' included on the re-release however, this like a new single, has yet to be confirmed.
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