Jemini were a British pop group from

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...

, best known for scoring '' nul points'' and finishing in last place at the Eurovision Song Contest 2003 with " Cry Baby".

Early career

Chris Cromby and Gemma Abbey (born 10 March 1981) met in 1995 at Liverpool's Starlight Stage School and toured Liverpool's pubs and clubs with the academy's kids' roadshow. At 16, after leaving college, they formed Tricity, named after the brand of electrical appliances. They changed their name to Jemini ("Gem-and-I") at the age of 19. They spent the next two and a half years touring pubs and clubs in the UK performing

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, Randy Crawford and

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covers and

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medleys, as well as their own compositions. Abbey stated she has loved the

Eurovision Song Contest The Eurovision Song Contest (), sometimes abbreviated to ESC and often known simply as Eurovision, is an international songwriting competition organised annually by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), featuring participants representing pr ...

since childhood, and counts previous Eurovision entrants such as Sonia, Precious and Dana International amongst her favourites.

"Cry Baby"

Jemini and the song "Cry Baby" were selected to represent the United Kingdom in the Eurovision Song Contest 2003 in

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Latvia Latvia ( or ; lv, Latvija ; ltg, Latveja; liv, Leţmō), officially the Republic of Latvia ( lv, Latvijas Republika, links=no, ltg, Latvejas Republika, links=no, liv, Leţmō Vabāmō, links=no), is a country in the Baltic region of ...

, after winning the

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's national selection '' A Song for Europe''. Their performance at Eurovision was criticised for being

off-key Off-key is musical content that is not at the expected frequency or pitch period, either with respect to some absolute reference frequency, or in a ratiometric sense (i.e. through removal of exactly one degree of freedom, such as the frequency of ...

, and later earned the UK '' nul points''.

Failure and break-up

The Eurovision failure prompted both mirth and consternation in the British media. Jemini admitted that their performance was off-key, and claimed they were unable to hear the backing track due to a technical fault.

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, long-time commentator on the contest for the BBC, claimed that the UK was suffering from "post-

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backlash". Following their failure at Eurovision, they were dropped by their record label, Integral Records UK, and their planned album was never released. "Cry Baby" entered the

UK Singles Chart The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...

at No. 15, but spent only three weeks in the chart. They later split up as a duo.

Reunions

In 2013, the duo reunited for a special interview about their performance in a two-hour-long BBC Three special ''How to Win Eurovision''. The special aired on 11 May 2013. In 2014, the duo reunited once again to take part in a Eurovision special of '' Pointless Celebrities'', and have subsequently appeared in several television interviews about their Eurovision experience.

Legal issues

Abbey was arrested and sentenced for social security fraud in November 2016. She was claiming as a single mother when she had undergone a wedding ceremony in Algarve in 2013 and was living with her partner. She overclaimed tax credits for her daughter born in 2009. She was given a 30-week prison sentence, suspended for one year, and put on supervision order for one year.

Discography

Singles

References

{{Authority control English pop music duos Eurovision Song Contest entrants for the United Kingdom Eurovision Song Contest entrants of 2003 Musical groups from Liverpool