Miss Papaya
Miss Papaya (Papaya), named after the sweet and delicious tropical fruit, is a Danish Bubblegum 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.
The people behind Miss Papaya are Linnea Handberg (lead vocals and songwriting) and Honeycutt (songwriting and production). Miss Papaya was originally created as a satire project, with the 1997 "Jingle Bells" intended as a parody. However, it was the unexpected success of her second single "Hero" that catapulted Miss Papaya into sudden stardom, and as a result a full-length album was made.
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 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.
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. 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 eurodance 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.
After Miss Papaya
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 wanted to focus on doing more mature pop music.
In 1999 Linnea Handberg 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. The album was well received critically, with some fans proclaiming it as "one of the most complete pop albums of all time". The music can be compared to that of Britney Spears' 2000 music.
Linnea is currently working as a song writer and backup vocalist for current artists, such as Chipz from the Netherlands. She is still writing catchy hooks and melodies in the bubblegum dance style.
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 "Typical Tropical", "Bumble Bee" and "Spaceman".
A third album for Bambee was planned, and Linnea had even written a number of demos for the album and sang backup on a number of her songs. However, due to bad timing, the Bambee project was dropped before a third album could be made.
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". Listen closely to the instrumental in No Princess... you will notice that it is exactly the same as "007" by Toy-Box.
