EliZe

eliZe (artist name of Elise van der Horst, born July 22, 1982 in Utrecht) is a Dutch singer-songwriter. Growing up in Bussum, eliZe shared her mother's passion for singing. As an eight year old she was selected to sing in a children's television show, "Kinderen voor Kinderen" ("Children for Children"), in which she performed for six years. From this period she is best known for singing "Het tietenlied" ("the tits song"), about a girl getting into puberty. After Kinderen voor Kinderen, she joined 'Non Stop', a teenage choir, and participated in two amateur productions of the musicals Chicago and Les Misérables. For the last couple of years, she has been active as a background singer in a song contest for children, and has completed a training college program for executive secretaries.[citation needed] In 2004, eliZe recorded an album in Denmark. The songs were written and produced by Peter Hartmann and Jan Langhoff, who also worked with Aqua. The first single, "Shake", was released in 2004 in the Netherlands. Though the song received the title "Dancesmash!" by Radio 538, the single was a modest hit by peaking at number 32 on the Dutch Top 40. "Automatic (I'm Talking to You)", the second single, was released in 2005 in the Netherlands and also earned the title "Dancesmash!" shortly after its release. The song became her signature song, peaking at number 7 there and becoming her best-selling single to date. It is also the first song that has ever charted outside the Netherlands, charting in Finland and Belgium amongst others in the top 20. Her third single, "I'm No Latino", was released in August 2005, and became a TMF Superclip shortly after its introduction. The song didn't perform as well as "Automatic" did, but still managed to peak at number 14 on the Dutch Top 40 and remaining in the chart for 6 weeks. eliZe has signed a contract at CMM and placed her management activities under AT Productions. Her latest single "Into Your System" was released on July 2nd 2006 and it debuted at number number 33 the week after its release in the national Top 40. The following week, it superstipped itself to number 23. Following the latest two singles, also "Into Your System" reached the top 20, peaking at number 18. Following the success of the singles, she released her long awaited debut album In Control on September 29, 2006. Of the album, which was released in the Benelux too, rumors were circulating it to be named Rhythm of Love. The album peaked at number 66 in the Dutch Mega Album Top 100. Many critics have the opinion the album should have been released after the success of her second single "Automatic." Possibly due the fact the fifth single "Itsy Bitsy Spider" flopped in the Netherlands, the album did not do well either. However the original song "Itsy Bitsy Spider" did not chart on the national Top 40, it did chart on the Mega Single Top 100, one of the two other official singles chart, only composed by legal downloads and physical single sales. The single debuted at number 100 on that chart and peaked at number 54 the next week. Since 2007, eliZe became yearclub mother of CERTUS; Nyenrode Heeren Jaarclub '07.