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Alexandra Rebecca Parks (born 26 July 1984) is a retired English singer-songwriter. In 2003 Parks won the second series of the BBC Television programme Fame Academy immediately followed by the release of her first album entitled Introduction, which went double platinum in the United Kingdom and gold in several other European countries. In 2005 she released her second album, Honesty, but was subsequently dropped by her record label in February 2006.
Parks has been inactive in music since 2006.
Parks began fronting a local band, One Trick Pony, which performed mostly cover songs by artists such as Joni Mitchell, Ani Di Franco and Michelle Branch. For two years they played in bars around Cornwall, but the momentum of the band gradually ran down, leaving Parks in her bedroom with a four-track tape machine and a bunch of her songs-in-progress.
Parks initially planned to move to Amsterdam to learn the art of clowning, but her career path changed when her father submitted an application for the second season of the BBC Television series, Fame Academy.
Parks is gay and before entering Fame Academy had a long-term girlfriend from Newquay.
The final showdown between Parks and Alistair Griffin was screened live and generated so many angry messages from viewers after Daniel Bedingfield who duetted with both finalists, made his feelings clear by urging viewers that they should "just vote for Alex". This outburst by Bedingfield led to claims of favouritism. The BBC was forced to close down the Points of View message boards as negative messages flooded the board. Bedingfield made a public apology to Griffin for his behaviour and outburst. The actual voting figures have never been publicly released. Parks went on to win the show.
Honesty was eventually released in October 2005, preceded by the lead single, "Looking For Water", in October 2005. The album peaked at No. 24 in the UK Albums Chart.
After being dropped by her label, Polydor Records, Parks wrote a statement to her fans on her official website stating that she had almost no support from the media and that she was disappointed in how things had turned out. She was not sure whether she was not promoted well enough because they did not like her music, her personally or the fact she had become famous via a reality TV programme.
| 2003 | Introduction
| BPI sales: 600,000+ BPI certification: 2× Platinum Also went Gold in Italy, Germany, Greece and Australia among others. | ||||||||
| 2005 | Honesty
| BPI sales: 50,000+ | ||||||||
| " — " denotes albums that were released but did not chart. | ||||||||||
| 2003 | "Maybe That's What It Takes" | Introduction | 3 | 26 |
| 2004 | "Cry" | 13 | 32 | |
| 2005 | "Looking for Water"1 | Honesty | — | — |
| 2006 | "Honesty" | 56 | — |
1 On downloads only
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