Second single, 'Secret Land', met with even greater success and is now considered one of Sandra's biggest hits while 'We'll Be Together', released as the third single to a big success, was the first song co-written by Sandra. Into a Secret Land moved from electro-pop to more sophisticated areas of pop, what was showcased by the first single, 'Heaven Can Wait', a top 20 European hit. Sandra and Michael married in January 1988 and relocated from Munich to the Spanish island Ibiza to work on what would be Sandra's third studio album.

She also joined a language school, where she worked on her English skills, while she spent weekends in Munich recording new songs. Shortly after the release of The Long Play, Sandra moved to London for six months, where she worked with singing instructor Helena Shelen and took drumming lessons to practice her timing.

'Little Girl' became the third single from the album in 1986, with the music video filmed in Venice, but met with moderate success.

The song also earned Sandra second place at the Tokyo Music Festival in 1986. The follow-up single, 'In the Heat of the Night', continued her international success, reaching number two in Germany and top 10 positions in many European countries. Her first album, The Long Play (1985), reached number 12 in her home country of Germany and was a top 10 success in Scandinavia. Sandra won international success in 1985 with a song '(I'll Never Be) Maria Magdalena', which topped the charts in 21 countries worldwide and reached top 10 in further five. The single, however, performed poorly on charts at that time dominated by disco mania. The impromptu performance gained considerable recognition and led to the release of her first single, which was a children's song about a pet dog, 'Andy mein Freund'. She was only a member of the audience, but when all participants had finished performing and the jury was discussing the results, Sandra walked onto the stage, persuaded the DJ to put on the German version of a song made famous by Olivia Newton-John and started singing. In 1975, at the age of thirteen, Sandra went with her mother to see Young Star Festival, a Saarbrücken talent competition. Sandra showed an early interest in music and dancing, starting to learn classical ballet at the age of 5, which she would continue for ten years, and receiving guitar lessons when she was 10 years old. She also had an older brother, Gaston, a paraplegic who died in 1995. Her father, Robert Lauer, who owned a wine store in Saarbrücken, is French and her mother, Karin ( née Eltern), who worked in a shoe store, is German. Sandra Ann Lauer was born in the German town of Saarbrücken, close to the French border.

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