Miss Papaya was Linnéa Handberg Lund (born 22 October, Hillerød, Denmark). Named after the sweet and delicious tropical fruit, Miss Papaya, also known as simply Papaya, is a Danish eurodance musician specialising in the Traditional Bubblegum dance genre. Several of her songs, including "Operator", "Hero", and "Pink Dinosaur", have appeared in the wildly popular Dance Dance Revolution video games.

In The Beginning
Linnea Handberg was born in the city of Copenhagen, Denmark on 22nd October, and raised in the UK. She is currently living in Copenhagen.

Linnea has always been interested in music, ever since she was young. It was no surprise then when, in the early 1990s, she began her career as a recording artist, signing up with record labels "Maverick", "Warner" and "Scandinavian Records". It was in 1997, when famous bubblegum group Aqua was influencing musicians with their widely popular happy dance style, that Linnea decided to create a a bubblegum dance project, and sing music in the same happy style. Linnea, joining forces with producers "Honeycutt", called her project "Miss Papaya" after the sweet and exotic tropical fruit.

Surprising Success
The Miss Papaya project was intended to be very tongue-in-cheek, with extremely silly lyrics, catchy hooks, and child like concepts. At first the project was just a joke, and Linnea later admitted that "nobody expected Miss Papaya to get the success she did". In 1997, Miss Papaya released her first single "Jingle Bells". The single was a minor hit, but nothing overly encouraging. The producers decided they would release a second single, "Hero", an original dance song written by Linnea and Honeycutt. Much to everyone's amazement, the single was a huge success, and Miss Papaya was recognised as a bubblegum dance artist, with music in the same vein as Aqua.

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Debut Album
Encouraged by the success of Hero, Honeycutt and Linnea began work on an album release. The result was "Pink", released in 1998, at the peak of bubblegum dance production. The album contained 11 super-sugary dance tracks, and one ballad (something that all bubblegum albums seemed to need). The album was an instant success, and Miss Papaya soon became a household name throughout Denmark. In 1998, Miss Papaya's single "Hero" was released in the USA, a feat that not many bubblegum dance artists manage. The single was very successful, and attracted the interest of many fans outside of Scandinavia. Madonna, whose daughter was a big fan of Miss Papaya, invited Linnea to America to see her child, and Madonna praised Linnea on her music writing.

While in America, Linnea was given a shopping spree, just in time for the new American music video for "Hero". Linnea later admitted that the shopping spree was one of the funnest things she has ever done, and it was a lot of fun picking out brightly coloured shoes and clothes for the shoot.

Discography
Below is Miss Papaya's complete discography.

ALBUMS

SINGLES

• Jingle Bells (1997)
  1. 2size Radio Edit (3:00)
  2. Honeycutt's Original Radio Mix (3:11)
  3. 2size Club Mix (5:28)
  4 Instrumental 2size Radio Edit (3:00)
  
• Hero (1997)
• Supergirl (1998)
• Operator (1999)
• Hero (2001) (re-release)

In The End
Two singles were released shortly after the release of "Pink" in 1998. "Supergirl" was released in 1998 by House Of Scandinavia, and was very successful. In 1999 "Operator" was released and received the same success, but by then Linnea was losing interest in the bubblegum scene and moving onto more 'mature' projects.

In 1999 Linnea Handberg quit her contract with Scandinavian Records and Honeycutt, and abandoned the Miss Papaya project. She no longer had the interest in bubblegum music that she did in 1998, and she felt that the world would mature and bubblegum would eventually move out of the spotlight. She began working on a solo career as a pop singer. In 2000, she released an album "This Is Who I Am" under her real name, Linnea Handberg. The album was quite successful, and was very well received critically. Many fans proclaimed it as being "one of the most complete pop albums of all time".

Linnea is currently working as a song writer and back up vocalist for current artists, such as Chipz from the Netherlands. She is still writing catchy hooks and melodies in the bubblegum dance style, even if she does try to keep it a bit of a secret. ;-)

Bambee Project
Linnea Handberg is the secret artist behind Bambee. Together with Honeycutt and Left Hand Productions, Linnea wrote many of Bambee's songs, including the number one hits "Bumble Bee" and "Spaceman".

A third album for Bambee was planned, and Linnea had even written a number of demos for the album. However, by this time Linnea was growing tired of being 'cheesy' and decided to move on from writing bubblegum dance styled music. Consequently, both the Bambee and Miss Papaya projects were abandoned.

Lynn
Linnea Handberg released a number of songs, mainly demos for other bubblegum dance artists, using the alias "Lynn". Two noteable songs are "Are You Online?" and "No Princess". Are You Online was a demo Lynn put together for Bambee, before Bambee recorded her own version for inclusion on the album "Fairytales". "No Princess" was written by Linnea especially for the dance game "In The Groove".

Sharing Her Talent
Although Linnea Handberg is no longer writing music under the alias Miss Papaya, she has written a number of material for other bubblegum dance artists, such as Bambee and Chipz. Below is a list of known songs Linnea has written for other bubblegum artists.