Linnéa Handberg Lund, also known as Papaya and, Miss Papaya is a Danish Eurodance musician. She then specialized in bubblegum dance music, in the same vein as Aqua, Bambee, Smile.dk, and Toy-Box. She today, in 2014, writes rock, pop and alternative music. She has achieved gold and platinum status as a songwriter within Europe and Asia in the 2000s after her 2 albums releases as an Independent artist. Several of her songs, including "Operator", "Hero", and "Pink Dinosaur", have appeared in the wildly popular Dance Dance Revolution video games. Papaya has also contributed the songs "No Princess" and "Spaceman" to In The Groove 2, along with Dynamic Hero.
History
Papaya was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, where she currently resides. She began her music career in the early 1990s, signing with record labelsMaverick, Warner, and Scandinavian Records. After Aqua's success in influencing other artists with their upbeat, dancey music, Papaya decided to try it for herself, using the same happy style as Aqua. The resulting "Miss Papaya Project" was at first a bit of a joke, intended to be quite silly and childish, as Papaya later admits "nobody expected Miss Papaya to get the success she did". Papaya released her first single, "Jingle Bells" in 1997. It was a small hit, but nothing extremely encouraging. Producers decided to release another single, "Hero" originally written by Ms. Handberg and Honeycutt. To everyone's surprise, "Hero" was a smash hit, and Papaya was cemented as a bubblegum artist in the same style as Aqua.
''Pink''
Her first album, Pink, was released in 1998 at the peak of the bubblegum boom after the success of "Hero", and was worked on by Papaya and Honeycutt. Containing 11 sugar-coated tracks and one ballad, the album was an instant success. Miss Papaya soon became a household name throughout Denmark. In 1998, "Hero" went across the pond to the U.S., something few bubblegum artists get to achieve. The single was quite a success, attracting many fans outside of Scandinavia. Even Madonna's daughter was a fan, Madonna inviting Papaya over to meet her child and praising Papaya on her songwriting skills. While in America, Papaya was given a shopping spree for her American music video of "Hero". She says it was one of the most fun things she had ever done, getting to pick out brightly colored outfits for the shoot. Her album was never actually released in the U.S., and her singles failed to chart due to bad promotion. Two singles were released after Pink, "Supergirl" in 1998 and "Operator" in 1999, and were received with the same amount of success. However, by that time, Ms. Handberg was beginning to tire of the bubblegum scene, moving on to more "mature" projects. In 1999 she quit her contract with Scandinavian Records & Honeycutt, and abandoned the Miss Papaya Project. She began on a solo career and in 2000 released an album, This Is Who I Am, under her real name. The album was a success, being well received by critics. Fans proclaimed it "one of the most complete pop albums of all time". Papaya still works as a songwriter and backup singer for current artists and still writes some bubblegum tunes, though she doesn't spread that around. Papaya was an artist behind Bambee, writing many of Bambee's songs along with Honeycutt. As Bambee's third album was being planned, however, Papaya was tiring out of the bubblegum genre, and Bambee Project was dropped along with the Miss Papaya Project. Papaya released some songs under the pseudonym Lynn including "Are You Online?" and "No Princess", for Bambee and In The Groove 2, respectively.
