Sing Your Song competition

In 2002, while at Dokuz Eylül University, Emre saw the advertisement of a musical competition, Sing Your Song, aired by a domestic television channel, Show TV. The jury included well-known Turkish rock singer Koray Candemir. With a friend, Onur Ela, they decided to apply with Emre's own song, Dönersen (If you come back), and out of 1500 applicants, they won the competition.^[5][6] The song was selected by Universal Music into a selection album and their band, named 6. Cadde was offered a contract with Universal Music Turkey.

6. Cadde

6. Cadde (previously named EQ) was established in İzmir in 1999, by Emre Aydin and fellow students from the same university and published demo recordings for two songs, Rüyamdaki Aptal Kadın (Foolish Woman in my Dream) and Tesadüfen (By Chance) on the internet.^[7] The group went through major transforming during the years, with changing band members, the final set-up with Onur Ela applied for the musical competition Sing Your Song, which they won. This made them possible to record their first professional album, produced by Haluk Kurosman and published by Universal Music Turkey in 2003. The recording was done in Istanbul in a month's time, while all-round production of the album took 2+1⁄2 months. The first single from the album was Sabuha, previously sung by such arabesk performers as Ibrahim Tatlises. Sabuha came to life by one of the tasks the jury of Sing Your Song assigned to the participants, namely that each band had to cover a song outside of their own musical genre. The song was refurbished by 6. Cadde from a different musical approach, changing its style and arrangements, in less than 15 minutes, as they had forgotten about the task and hurriedly recorded Sabuha for next day's competition shooting. Later the song was re-recorded for the album.^[8] In an interview Kurosman gave away that the 6. Cadde album was the rough mix of studio recordings, previously prepared for radio promotion, because his computer's hard disk became damaged, all the records vanished, and they did not have time to record them all over again.^[8] Soon after the first stocks arrived to the shops, Universal Music Turkey closed down, Onur Ela decided to leave the band, and Emre opted for a solo career.

Solo career

Emre Aydın in Cologne, Germany, February 2008.

After 6. Cadde broke up, Emre returned to Izmir, where he went through a difficult phase of his life. He had difficulties at the university, in finding a new rent, and other personal problems that made him write most of the songs of his first solo album, "Afili Yalnızlık" (Ostentatious Loneliness), released by Sony BMG in 2006,^[9] after he was signed by former 6. Cadde producer Haluk Kurosman and talent manager Hadi Elazzi's own company, GRGDN. The album was recorded in the GRGDN studio in the Ulus district of Istanbul. Emre was assisted by renowned Turkish musicians, bass guitar was played by Cem Bahtiyar of maNga, drums by İllker Baliç of Gripin, electric guitar by Tuğrul Akyüz of Vega and Kurosman himself also contributed as a musician.^[9] His first videoclip was shot for the title song, "Afili Yalnızlık", directed by cinematographer Yon Thomas, who has previously worked with, among others, Norah Jones and Slipknot.^[10] The storyline was also written by Thomas, who excluded the singer from the scenario of a narcissistic woman, played by Turkish actress Şebnem Dönmez.^[6] The story of the first video was extended to the following two videos, shot for "Kim Dokunduysa Sana" (Whoever Touched You) and "Git" (Go), the latter was also directed by Yon Thomas. Three more videos were shot, for "Belki Bir Gün Özlersin" (Maybe One Day You'll Miss), "Bu Kez Anladım" (I Understood It This Time) and "Dayan Yalnızlığım" (Endure, My Loneliness).

Emre's album quickly became a smash hit in Turkey, having won several awards, including Blue Jean Magazine's awards for Best Song, Best Newcomer, Best Music Video and his producer, Haluk Kurosman was named Best Producer.^[11] Emre also won the prestigious Powertürk Music Award as Best Newcomer in 2007 and a year later was awarded for the Best song and Best duet at the same gala (see Awards section for a full list of awards). The album received mostly positive criticism, according to Burhan Ayeri columnist, "Emre Aydın's performance at 2 Renk [a television programme] was extraordinary. With a good manager, he will sweep away Tarkan. As Özcan Deniz said, 'this is the first time we see all songs of an album being top hits'."^[12]

The singer is among the most frequently touring Turkish singers, in 2007 he gave 130 live concerts until August.^[13] Emre also completed his first European tour in 2008, composed of concerts in Bochum, Cologne and Rotterdam and performed in the Carling Academy, London on 11 May 2008.^[14]

On 6 November 2008 he won the MTV Europe Music Awards 2008 as Europe's Favourite Act. Upon this success, the singer decided to release an English single, planned for March 2009, which will be followed by his second Turkish album, ought to be released in May 2009.^[3]

The singer's popularity is effectively shown at his official forum, which had 79,000 registered members as of October 2007^[15] and more than 150,000 as of October 2009.^[16]

Albums

Singles

Chart positions