Alexandra Burke

Alexandra Imelda Cecelia Ewan Burke (born 25 August 1988) is an English singer and winner of the fifth series of UK television singing talent show The X Factor. Burke had previously auditioned for the 2005 series of the show, where she reached the last seven in her category but was not selected for the live shows.


Burke's prize, as winner, was a recording contract with Simon Cowell's Syco record label, which is co-owned by Sony Music Entertainment. The contract has a stated value of £1 million, of which £150,000 is a cash advance and the remainder is allocated to recording and marketing costs.


On 15 December 2008, Burke became the current European record holder for single sales over a period of 24 hours, selling 105,000 copies of her debut single, "Hallelujah", a Leonard Cohen song, in one day.[3] The figure beats that of her X Factor predecessor, Leona Lewis, who previously held the record for selling 82,000 copies of her single, "A Moment Like This", over 24 hours. Hallelujah went on to become the Christmas number one single of 2008. It was also announced as the top-selling song of the year on the BBC Radio 1 Chart Show on 28 December 2008, beating The X Factor finalists' song "Hero". It is the first time that an X Factor winner has topped the end of year chart in the UK with their winner's single. Sales of "Hallelujah" passed 1 million by 9 January 2009, making Burke the first British female soloist to sell 1 million copies of a single in the UK.


Her debut album, Overcome, was released on 19 October 2009 and entered the charts at number one. It will be released in the US at a later date. Lead single and BRIT-nominated single "Bad Boys" featuring Flo Rida was released on 12 October 2009 and debuted at number-one in the UK, becoming her second consecutive number-one single. The single was released to European markets in early 2010 and charted well in the top tens, and twenties in many countries. Burke has enjoyed a total of seven non-consecutive weeks at Number 1 on the UK Singles Chart (three with "Hero" with the X Factor Finalists of 2008, three with "Hallelujah", and one with "Bad Boys"). She has been nominated for two BRIT Awards. She has achieved two number one singles ("Hallelujah" and "Bad Boys") as well as two number one singles as a featured artist ("Hero" and "Everybody Hurts" charity singles).