1989–1993: Composing and songwriting In 1989, his passion for music led him to leave the United States after two-and-a-half years and he returned to Turkey. His professional journey in music began at Istanbul Gelişim Studio, owned by
Garo Mafyan. It was there that he unveiled a talent for composing and songwriting. He wrote and composed his first song "Vazgeçme" together with Bülent Tezcan and the song was given to singer
Ajda Pekkan who released it in 1991. Ajda Pekkan,
Sezen Aksu,
Zerrin Özer,
Muazzez Abacı,
Ayşegül Aldinç,
Yonca Evcimik, Ozan Orhon,
Burak Kut, Deniz Arcak, Emel Müftüoğlu,
İzel,
Reyhan Karaca,
Sibel Alaş, Asya,
Hakan Peker,
Sertab Erener, Ferda Anıl Yarkın and Mert Ekren are among the artists for whom Sandal has written and composed songs. For a while he worked for the music legend
Onno Tunç as an assistant.
1994–1999: Suç Bende, Gölgede Aynı, Detay In July 1994, his first studio album
Suç Bende was released. The 7 songs on this album were written and composed by Sandal himself and within 3 months, he gave 140 concerts in Turkey and 30 concerts outside the country. The first music video for this album was released for the song "Araba" and it was recorded in
Beşiktaş. Zeki Demirkubuz appeared on his second music video for the song "Jest Oldu". He also recorded an action video clip for the song "Bir Anda". In 1996,
Gölgede Aynı became the best-selling album in Turkey with more than 3,600,000 sales. On 1 September 1998, his third studio album
Detay was released by Prestij Müzik. The success of this album enabled Sandal to give more than 120 concerts across the country, Another music video was made for the song "Hatırla Beni", a duet with the Greek singer
Natalia. The third and final music video was released for the song "Geriye Dönemem". In 2000, his song "Gidesim Gelmiyor", featuring
Reyhan Karaca, became one of the best songs in Turkey. In June 2001, he composed the song "Can Cana" for the Istanbul Metro Service. He later performed with the Italian singer
Eros Ramazzotti at the
Ali Sami Yen Stadium in front of 25,000 people. He later confessed that among his performances with other stars, the one with Ramazzotti was the most memorable one. In May 2002, Sandal's new album
Kop was released by Erol Köse Production and became the second best-selling album of the year. His first
maxi single Maxi Sandal 2003 was released in Turkey in 2003. The first music video for this maxi single was made for the song "Aşka Yürek Gerek" and Sandal again appeared with the Greek singer Natalia on the video clip. His new single, "Aya Benzer 2003 (Moonlight)", was released by Universal Music. Sandal eventually released his new album
Seven. The album ranked among the top 10 on the sales charts in Europe. Sandal played in the music video for "All My Life" with
Miss World 2002 Azra Akın The video was recorded at the
Topkapı Palace. Following the success of
Seven, German talk show host Stefan Raab came with his team to Turkey to record an exclusive program about Sandal in
Karaköy. He also appeared on the cover of
Der Spiegel magazine. For the 100th anniversary of the foundation of Beşiktaş football team, Sandal composed the songs "100. Yıl Marşı" and "Hadi Hisset".
2004–2007: Success in Europe On 13 July 2004, Sandal released another maxi single titled
İste. The first music video from this work was released for the song "İsyankar". Later, another music video for the Oriental Remix version of the song was recorded, using the footage of one of Sandal's concerts. Another music video was released for the song "Kavrulduk". Sandal faced his fans in summer at his concerts under the theme "Volkswagen with Music Love". He even appeared at some of his concerts with his Volkswagen cars. In the same year, under a contract with LR Cosmetics, Sandal produced a series of perfumes called "7" in 24 different countries. In 2005, he released "İsyankar" as a single under the label Universal Music. "İsyankar" became one of the best-selling songs in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. He later shared the same stage with
Shakira at Aspendos Theater on the
ZDF program
Wetten Dass?. Following the concert,
Shakira said: "Mustafa Sandal is a very good friend and a nice pal. It's more than enough to have friends like him." Sandal also met
Paris Hilton at the backstage of the program. On 7 May 2005, he initiated Musti TV on his official website. In August, his new maxi single, "Yamalı Tövbeler", was released. On the day it was released, "Yamalı Tövbeler" sold 180,000 copies, which was a record in Turkey. Sandal's single "İsyankar" sold 150,000 copies in Germany, which earned him a gold certification. The video clip for "İsyankar" was shot in Istanbul, near
Bosphorus, and produced by Universal Music. The video ranked first on the
MTV TRL Charts list, leaving behind
Blue and
Avril Lavigne. After this success, Sandal started his world tour on 5 February in Germany and performed in England, Pakistan, Russia, the Netherlands, Albania and Brazil.
2007–2012: Devamı Var, Karizma and Organik On 12 June 2007, Sandal announced his new album
Devamı Var, and it was released a day later on 13 June. The album's lead single "İndir" was written and composed by
Sinan Akçıl. The likes of İskender Paydaş, Özgür Yedievli, Sinan Akçıl, Erhan Bayrak and Tolga Kılıç worked on the album for one year, about which Sandal said: "For this reason I can call it the 'album of my life'. My songs will dominate the market in summer. We worked at the studio for a year. I missed doing concerts and being with my fans." Sandal also appeared with his grandfather Hüseyin İleri on the Muhabbet Card commercials. In 2008, Sandal started a tour of concerts in Turkey under the sponsorship of Muhabbet Cart. He finished the tour in
Muğla by performing in front of 10,000 people. In his concerts in 15 different cities, he performed for a total number of 500,000 people. His songs "İndir", "Aşka Yürek Gerek" and "İsyankar" appeared on a video game (SingStar Turkish Party) for PlayStation 2. The company officials said that they were thinking about including a Turkish pop star in their game console, and chose Sandal due to his popularity in Europe. Sandal received an award for the 2008 Best Commercial Film for his appearance on a mobile phone commercial. The singer, who had 200,000 fans on his website, ranked third in terms of popularity after
Madonna and
Britney Spears in Europe in 2008. In June 2009, Sandal released his new album
Karizma. About the album he said: "My first album as a father is considered to be a milestone for me". He worked on this album with Bojan Dugic who had arranged songs for Britney Spears,
Jennifer Lopez and
Sting in the past. Bojan Dugic composed the album's lead single "Ateş Et ve Unut" and the song "Karizma". As Dugic decided to give a song he had previously prepared for Jennifer Lopez to Sandal, the release of the album was delayed for two weeks. The album was downloaded 450,000 times from internet websites in 4 days and Sandal ensured that these sites and pirate sellers were identified by a team of 300 people selected from his fan club members. 50,000 dollars was spent on the music video for "Ateş Et ve Unut", which was recorded at Haydarpaşa Port. The United Nations Children's Fund and UNICEF Germany Committee selected Mustafa Sandal as a European spokesperson for the aid campaign for refugee children in Pakistan. In a poll conducted among Pakistani children and in another one in European countries among a total of 50 thousand people, Sandal was voted the most popular Turkish artist in Europe, which urged him give a message about peace in the world in the UNICEF brochure published in Ramadan 2009. Sandal later said about the offer: "I accepted it without thinking, and we will meet children in our Eastern and Southeastern Anatolian tour." Sandal's English, German and French fans, reacted positively to the song "Ateş Et ve Unut" on internet and some said about Sandal's charity work: "Turkey's Michael Jackson has become a goodwill ambassador for our children." In 2010, Mustafa Sandal and Gökben made a duet called "Nevrin Döner" in the album
Dev Devleri, which brings together Nostalgic and new generation artists. In June 2011, Mustafa Sandal and
Gülben Ergen released the duet "Şıkır Şıkır". The song is written by Sandal and composed by the Egyptian artist Amr Mostafa; It was downloaded 133,253 times and became 2011's best-selling song on the digital platform in Turkey. In summer of 2012, Sandal released the album
Organik and described it as the "album of my life". The songs were first listened to by fans at his concert, which was aired on Turkcellmuzik.com. The album's lead single "Ego" ranked number-one on Top 100 in digital platforms. The album was also discussed in the social media in particular and Sandal expressed his excitement by publishing a video with
Mahsun Kırmızıgül through his YouTube channel. The album's first music video was recorded for the song "Ego". Tülay İbak directed the music video, in which 20 actors and members of his team appeared. Sandal said about the music video: "It's not a clip, but a short film, I wanted to get away from similar things and show people something different." It was also the fastest-rising work of the 24th week on Nielsen Music Turkey list. Sandal's wife
Emina was featured on the song "Çek Gönder".
Soner Sarıkabadayı and Eflatun were among the artists featured in this album. Sandal's concert in
Beykoz,
Istanbul, was attended by 150,000 which was a record at the time. Sandal was among the artists featured on the album ''Tam 90'dan'' in tribute to Volga Tamöz and voiced the song "Kalmadı" for it. Together with Turkey National Olympic Committee (TMOK), Sandal became an ambassador for School Olympic Games Project to promote sport for youth and their families and composed the song "Teşekkürler Anne" for the project's campaign.
2013–present: Singles In 2013, he started working on a new single for which he collaborated with
Gülşen and
Ozan Çolakoğlu. Due to some certain events in Turkey at the time, Sandal decided to postpone the project and on 6 August 2013 he released the single "Tesir Altında", which became the best-selling single of 2013. In the following years, Sandal continued his career by releasing a number of singles, including "Reset" (feat.
Eypio) (2018), "Gel Bana" (2019) and Mod (feat. Zeynep Bastık) (2019), all of which entered the official music chart in Turkey. On 27 September 2017 Mustafa Sandal performed at the
2017 Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games closing ceremony held at the
Olympic Stadium in
Ashgabat,
Turkmenistan with song in Turkmen language
Kushtdepdi. At the 2019
ABU TV Song Festival organized by the
Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union and held in
Tokyo, Sandal represented Turkey – one of the eleven participating countries – and performed a new version of his song "Aya Benzer". In April 2020, he released a single titled "Yanında" in tribute to the healthcare workers during their fight against the
COVID-19 pandemic. Singers Melis Fis and Defkhan appeared as the featured artists in this song, the digital revenues from which were donated to healthcare facilities. The song was recorded using the new technology of 8D music. In September 2020, he released the single "Damar", which topped the music charts in Turkey. In the 2021 New Year's special program on
Kazakhstan's
Astana TV, Sandal performed a Kazakh-Turkish version of his song "Mod" as a duet with Kazakh singer Indira Elemes. He also had a solo performance on stage with his songs "Araba" and "İsyankar". In January 2021, Sandal and Doğu Demirkol released their duet "Tekrar". The song was accompanied by a music video as well as a short film, throughout which references were made to Sandal's previous music videos. == Cinema and TV career ==