Piece by Piece (Katie Melua album)
2005 studio album by Katie Melua
Piece by Piece is the second studio album by British singer Katie Melua. It was released on 26 September 2005 by Dramatico Records. The album combines original material written by Melua and her longtime collaborator Mike Batt with several cover versions, featuring four songs by each writer and one co-written composition.
The album received mixed-to-positive reviews from critics, who praised Melua's voice, emotional delivery, and the album’s melancholy atmosphere, while some criticised its safe adult-contemporary approach and polished production. It was a major commercial breakthrough, reaching number one in the United Kingdom, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, and Poland, while peaking within the top five in several other European markets. The album earned multiple platinum certifications, including 4× Platinum in both the UK and Germany, and sold over three million copies across Europe.
Background
Melua wrote the title song "Piece By Piece" after she broke up with her boyfriend Luke Pritchard, and "Half Way up the Hindu Kush" was written by Katie and Mike Batt playing on the unusualness of the title phrase, which cropped up in a conversation about scarves on a train journey. Alongside covers of "Blues in the Night" and Canned Heat's "On the Road Again", the album includes "Thank you, Stars", which was previously released as a B-side on Melua's debut single "The Closest Thing To Crazy" in 2003.
Promotion
The album's lead single, "Nine Million Bicycles", written by Mike Batt, became Melua's first top-five hit in the UK. The song attracted attention following criticism from science writer Simon Singh, who argued that its lyrics reflected misunderstandings of cosmology and the scientific method. A good-natured public exchange followed, culminating in Melua recording an alternative version of the song incorporating scientifically accurate lyrics proposed by Singh.
“Piece by Piece (Katie Melua album)” enters the record as 2005 studio album by Katie Melua. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Piece, Katie and Melua can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1078186. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2005 and 2003.
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