Anne Linnet

Anne Linnet is a well-known Danish composer, musician and singer. Born in Århus, she studied at the conservatoire Det Jyske Musikkonservatorium. In the late 1960s she started as a folk musician, playing in a group alongside her then husband, Holger Laumann. After releasing a debut solo album, 'Sweet Thing' (1973), she co-started a female rock group which became a leader in Danish political rock throughout the 1970s and acted as role models to many female musicians. Linnet herself, divorced from her husband, went public as a lesbian. The group was dissolved in 1981, and Anne Linnet pursued a successful solo career which was first based around the logically titled Anne Linnet Band. Her greatest success was the solo effort 'Jeg er jo lige her' (1988) which sold more than 400,000 copies in Denmark alone. She was also the lead figure of the band Marquis de Sade on two groundbreaking albums, and she recorded popular song versions of poetry by Tove Ditlevsen and Kai Normann Andersen. Since mid-1990s Anne Linnet saw her popularity and record sales decline in spite of the release of several solo albums as well as another band project and, in 2002, the regrouping of Marquis de Sade. At times Anne Linnet has also taken an interest in the behind-the-scenes work of the Danish music industry by starting her own record company and attempting to reestablish Copenhagen night club Montmartre.