Trine Rein (born November 11, 1970) is an American-Norwegian singer. Her album sales have exceeded more than a million records.
Career
Debut
Trine Rein released her first solo album in 1993, Finders, Keepers. It peaked at the top of the Norwegian album chart for five weeks.[1] But as she was almost unknown before the release, it took her 14 weeks to finally be the most popular album in Norway. And due to the extensive foreign press coverage of the Olympic Winter Games in Lillehammer February 1994, her album was soon a hit in Japan as well. At one time she topped 16 different Japanese radio station charts simultaneously. Due to this popularity and interest on the Japanese isles, almost two-thirds of the more than 600,000 albums sold of her first album were bought by Japanese fans.
Rein has released two successful singles. The first came with her debut album, called "Just Missed the Train", and has become Rein's trademark song, exposing her great singing ability. The song has later been covered by child star actress Danielle Brisebois (who wrote the song with Scott Cutler), Estonian Eurovision participant Maarja-Liis Ilus, American Idol winner Kelly Clarkson, and a pre-American Idol Carly Hennessy (a.k.a. Carly Smithson), among others.
Declining sales
Her second album came in 1996, called Beneath My Skin, and also enjoyed some success, though only selling about half the number of copies as her debut album did. More than 300,000 copies were sold in Norway, Japan, and Denmark, which was a new market for Rein. In its first release week, the album went straight to number one in Norwegian albums chart. Again a popular single was released in 1996, this time her cover of the alternative rock band Ednaswap's song "Torn", which later, in 1997 got its worldwide fame with the Natalie Imbruglia cover, with one of the most broadcast music videos of that time on music channel MTV.
Moving abroad
Her third album To Find The Truth was released in 1998, and sold about 100 000 copies.[2] Shortly afterwards, she decided she had got enough of the celebrity life, and searched anonymous refugee existence abroad for a few years. In 2000, Rein settled permanently in San Francisco and Los Angeles where she had a variety of odd jobs, including being a limo driver.
She finally moved back to Norway in 2004 and decided to make a comeback to the music scene. She managed two projects simultaneously; firstly she starred in a summer show called "80-tallet beat for beat" with three other artists. She also released her first compilation CD, entitled The Very Best of Trine Rein the same year.
Eurovision ambitions
Although Rein had stated that she would never participate in the Norwegian final and selection method for the Eurovision Song Contest, Melodi Grand Prix, she accepted Norwegian broadcaster NRK's invitation to participate in 2006. Rein entered the first semi-final in Alta, winning the televote and qualifying for the final at the Oslo Spektrum. Rein's composition, "Here for the Show", was written by three experienced Swedish producers/songwriters, and was criticized for having similarities to Robbie Williams's "Let Me Entertain You", which the authors also admitted had been their sole inspiration. The song did not win the national final.
On May 18, 2010, Rein premiered her first single in twelve years titled "I Found Love" on her official website, and it became available for digital purchase on May 24. Rein's new album (her fourth record to date) was called Seeds of Joy, and was released on September 20, 2010.
