Claire Richards from Steps releases new album 'Euphoria' featuring a Eurovision classic

Photo courtesy of Claire Richards Facebook page

Claire Richards, a member of the pop quintet Steps, has released her sophomore solo album, 'Euphoria'.

The album is made up of covers of songs by female singers who have inspired Claire as an artist. Like the album title suggests Loreen's 'Euphoria', which won Eurovision in 2012, is covered by Claire and is the number 1 track on the recording.

Claire has clear Eurovision connections as she headlined the Grand Final Party at this year's Contest in Liverpool, on the Pier Head at the Eurovision Village where she performed Loreen's 'Euphoria'.

The winning Eurovision song was not originally going to be on Claire's new album. The Steps singer told the magazine Retropop: "Someone said, 'You should do a Eurovision song because you've got a captive audience', and 'Euphoria' by Loreen was the obvious choice because ... it's probably the best Eurovision song ever."

Not only was 'Euphoria' a fantastic addition to Claire's album, it also helped solve the dilemma the singer was having over choosing an album title. As Claire further recounted to Retropop: "We also didn't have a title for the album and we'd spent weeks going through every single word in the dictionary ... it was in the back of the car on the way to shoot the album cover that we decided to do Euphoria for the Eurovision gig and I said 'Actually, 'Euphoria' is quite a good title.'"

Claire would later meet Loreen at the Attitude Pride Awards, where she got to thank the Eurovision songstress for providing the album name.

There are several other Eurovision connections on Claire's new album. ABBA's hit 'Summer Night City' is covered as a duet with Erasure frontman Andy Bell. The deluxe album features a cover of Olivia Newton-John's 'Xanadu'.

The album also has a duet with Australian singer Delta Goodrem, covering the Barbara Streisand and Donna Summer's song 'No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)'. There were unfortunately some challenges in recording the duet as it had to be done remotely, and it was delayed by a month when Delta strained her vocal cords.

Despite the many Eurovision connections on 'Euphoria', it seems Claire has no plans to represent her country the UK at the contest. In an interview with The Sun newspaper's Bizarre TV column, Claire stated: "It's such a great show and Sam Ryder did so well but poor Mae Muller didn't do so well. I'm sure it's a wonderful thing to be a part of but I'm not sure I'm ready to chuck in my career just yet. It's such a risk and I've never been a risk taker."

Read all about the band Steps connections to Eurovision here.

Claire Richards - 'Euphoria' Track List

1. 'Euphoria'

2. 'Song For The Lonely'

3. 'No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)' (with Delta Goodrem)

4. 'So Emotional'

5. 'I Surrender'

6. 'Summer Night City (with Andy Bell)

7. 'This Time I Know It’s For Real'

8. 'Never Trust A Stranger'

9. 'Gloria'

10. 'Never Knew Love Like This Before'

11. 'Love Is A Battlefield'*

12. 'Xanadu'*

13. 'Goodbye To Love'

(*deluxe only)

'Euphoria' is available for download and streaming on all platforms, and is also able to be purchased in CD and vinyl form.

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