When Anastacia appeared as a contestant on MTV’s Nineties talent show The Cut, audiences heard her before they saw her, those thick, heavyweight vocals like caramel curdling in her throat. Then, slowly, carefully, she stalked her way down the stairs towards the crowd, a delighted panther in soon-to-be Anastacia staples: tinted glasses and a crop top to show off her olive-skinned midriff.
But as soon as she finished belting out what would go on to become her second single, “Not That Kind”, she turned shy. She pulled on her cardigan and looked at the floor – not yet the self-assured powerhouse who named her own genre (“sprock”, some elemental hybrid of soul, pop, and rock). Just a year later, in 2000, she would release her debut album, and rise, hot on the heels of Christina Aguilera, as the first diva of the new millennium.
