Claire Richards is best known as one of the five members of British pop band Steps, but she’s just announced her second solo album will be out this August.

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It’s a collection of some of Claire’s favourite songs and there’s a heavy dose of dancefloor classics on the album.

The new record is titled Euphoria, and it sees the Steps singer delivering her take on the song saw Swedish singer Loreen win Eurovision back in 2012.

She also takes on Cher’s Only the Lonely, Whitney Houston’s So Emotional, Donna Summer’s This Time I Know it’s for Real, Kim Wilde’s Never Trust a Stranger, Pat Benatar’s Love is a Battlefield and the disco classic Never Knew Love Like This Before, which was originally a hit for Stephanie Mills.

Olivia Newton-John’s Xanadu also makes the list, as well as Gloria which was originally hit in Italian for Umberto Tozzi in 1979. Three years later Laura Brannigan has a global smash with an English language version of the tune.

There are also two duets on the record. First up Claire Richards teams up with Delta Goodrem for a version of No More Tears (Enough is Enough), then Erasure singer Andy Bell is recruited for a cover of ABBA’s Summer Night City. 

The lead single is Surrender, a song that Celine included on her 2002 album A New Day. The song was originally a ballad, and Richards performed it previously in that style in Steps live shows in the past. Now it’s been given a make-over and is presented as an up=beat dance tune.

The video for the song will be released at 11pm (WA time) on 30th June.

Steps released three albums between 1998 and 2000 filling the charts with hits like 5678, Last Thing on My Mind, One for Sorrow, Tragedy, Better Best Forgotten and Heartbeat.

When the band split up in 2001 Claire formed a duo with band mate Ian ‘H’ Watkins. They scored a hit in Britain with their debut single DJ and further success with Half a Heart. They also recorded Another You, Another Me a song written by ABBA stars Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson, which was originally written for Swedish outfit Gemini.

Steps reformed and went on to record four more albums, their most recent offering was What the Future Holds Pt2, which was released in 2021. Claire Richards’ first solo album My Wildest Dreams arrived in 2019.

Euphoria is released on 25th August. 

OIP Staff

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