Anna Oxa

Anna Oxa is an Italian pop singer of Albanian descent who gained widespread popularity thanks to her numerous appearances at the Sanremo Song Festival. Born Anna Hoxha on April 28, 1961, in Bari, Italy, she was still a teen when she made her Sanremo debut in 1978 with the song "Un'Emozione da Poco," turning heads with her androgynous punk rock look. Even though she finished runner-up in the competition, the song was later issued as a single and reached Number 1 in Italy, propelling its parent album Oxanna to the top of the albums chart. After delivering two more releases for RCA Italiana—Anna Oxa (1979) and the EP Controllo Totale (1980)—the singer moved to CBS and fulfilled the promise of her earlier work on albums such as Per Sognare, per Cantare, per Ballare (1983), La Mia Corsa (1984), Oxa (1985), and È Tutto un Attimo (1986), the latter of which peaked at Number 3 on the Italian charts. In 1989, she won the Sanremo Festival for the first time with "Ti Lascerò," a duet with Fausto Leali that snatched the top spot of the singles chart. Tutti i Brividi del Mondo followed suit later that year, earning Anna Oxa the second chart-topping record of her career. During the 1990s, she recorded a live album with the rock band I New Trolls, paid tribute to her favorite artists on the albums Cantautori (1993) and Cantautori 2 (1994), and scored another triumph at Sanremo in 1999 with the song "Senza Pietà." Anna Oxa retreated from the spotlight shortly after the release of her 2010 album Proxima, but made a surprise comeback in 2023 with the Top 100 single "Sali (Canto dell'Anima)."