Roman
04-22-2010, 03:14 AM
Alizée, novel
Where une enfant du siècle is presented
I. Prolog
At the hour when, taken by a crazy historiographic passion, the journalists compile all the lists possible, calculated or subjective, with the aim of tracing the final portrait of the passing decade, we are allowed these observations: of the ten best selling singles in France in 2000, the first was a reprise of Claude François, three were a product of the same musical comedy, two signaled the return of old legends from another time. The only group represented has since separated.
Alizée, in era number three, has traversed the period on a tightrope, on the unstable line of public affection, and we find her on the other side of the abyss, as herself. She could, like so many others, not care but to protect her career, carefully handle her dividends, look after the industry of her notoriety. The rails are there, it would suffice to follow them. This is precisely what she has chosen not to do.
II. Where the young girl turns to the idol
The life of Alizée reads like one of these generational novels which, from an increasingly greater perspective, sets out to retake the entirety of recent time and expound upon the epoch. It's the story of a young girl transformed at 16 years of age into an ambivalent idol by the greatest French star and her Pygmalion. "Moi... Lolita": more than a million and a half disks sold.
At the age when one forms the subject (in other words, when one is establishing oneself in life), Alizée found herself instituted as the object (of adoration) and installed in a lasting fashion under the gaze of the multitude. And that goes for the idol like the novel according to Stendhal, it's 'a mirror that one promenades the length of a course/path'. The era that reflects itself in this one held out by Farmer & Boutonnat tried to pass through the millennium without too much encumbrance, in redefining along the way childhood, womanhood and desire.
Alizée passes the bounds and borders, Tokyo, Top of the Pops, more than four million disks enjoy their cheer in the world. Then, she is 18 years old, she's has enough, she would like to swim against the current, and that's what she does, kind of.
III. Where, from girl to woman, she knows what she wants
The novel of the young girl is written in such a manner that the accidents and turns of her life recreate, on a personal scale, certain movements of the common cultural history. She marries a defector of Star Academy. In Las Vegas. Her name appears in the Clearstream listings. She breaks up with her artistic parents and, sometimes, takes to the maquis.
For an idol to function, reflect, she must have no "edge" and be available (that is to say, she must have no distinguishing characteristics of her own, perhaps be a blank slate upon which one can project that which is needed to please the crowds as one might say that Farmer did with Alizée in the beginning.). And now Alizée has a child. Then returns, animated by a certain idea of independence. Her third album will be released on her own label, Wisteria Song, licensed to Sony. She will have produced it herself, surrounded by her family and artists that she admires (Jérémy Châtelain, Jean Fauque, Oxmo Puccino, Daniel Darc, Bertrand Burgalat...). Psychédélices is a gold disk in France (though to be honest, one must admit, this has to do with expected popularity, not actual popularity as indicated by "consumer sales"); the album finished the year in fourth place of French foreign sales (sales of French music to foreigners); Alizée becomes a superstar in South America (ok, technically Mexico is part of North America, but that's what they meant); she plays (as herself) in a telenovela followed by more than 75 million spectators.
IV. Where the young woman refuses, knocks down, and reconstructs
But that's not enough. After three albums of classic "variété", Alizée wants a departure. Not just a step to the side. She is 25 years old *1, it's time that the story takes a new turn and gains in strangeness.
It's at the detour of a remix that she crosses the path of the label, Institubes, known for having brought it's bit to the grand French electronic machine, and it's a gesture of defiance that opens this new chapter. David Rubato entrusted a remix of "Fifty Sixty" to the attention of clubs and DJs. With disregard of the order, he plunges the morcel into a bath of slowness and shows it a new trajectory, in the form of a Gainsbourgian diversion. Beyond electro, much more than a particular sound, it's this art of controled blundering that won over Alizée.
Voilà, a new field of possibilities opens itself up: it's not going to be about sucking the life-blood from an esthetic, about slipping nimbly into the uniform of the moment, like Madonna would do, but rather to organize the meeting of two languages, of two cultures developing their works and their codes each on their own. It's not that Alizée is fed up with "variété", it's that she wants finally to be able to formulate her own. From there comes the risk. From there comes the courage.
From there comes the detour. In surrounding herself with young producers and authors who's specialty is not variété, but electro or indy pop, and in asking them to write for her, and if for no other reason, in departing as much from their register as she strayed from her's, Alizée obtained what she wanted: a great novel, a drama.
V. Where one presents A.
The artistic team comes together very quickly. From this initial song "Fifty Sixty" survive some fragments of fiction and a character: a young girl that we are calling "A." At the height of the Warhol era, A. leaves her small home town to ascend to New York. She pursues the wild dreams of the time, the pop electricity, the arty bohemia, the promises of the feverish all nighters (nights where one never gets to sleep from being out partying or whatever). But also the overturning of values, the revolution of morals. But also social cruelty, mercantile cynicism, urbane extremism.
Unfortunately, A. suffers an anachronistic maladie: romantism. She searches for love in spite of Andy, finds it, loses it. The passage of this young girl through a rather short moment in time is evoked from one song to the next; she disappears, returns, fades out, fuses with Alizée, detaches from her; she haunts the disk like a fantome.
VI. Where the story of the disk is told
The future will easily come into fashion. An underlay of chrome and three lasers suffice to impose amazing jumps in time, grandiose accelerations. *2 Une enfant du siècle could have been able to profit from the curriculum of it's tutelary label (having guardian status) and to attempt the electro adventure, to treat itself to a little sci-fi joyride, a Z grade *3 of anticipation. But Alizée, this Alizée who knew how to traverse the decade while keeping a pure heart, would be incapable of insincerity. She came to find the means to a new liberty, not to slum with the underground. ±1
It is striking to take note of this album's diversity. The electric trek of "Limelight", the auteur cinema*4 of "Grand Central", the angular fragility of "À Cœur fendre", the grand nostalgic angle of "Eden, Eden", the tragic purity of "La Candida", the elegiac arpeggios of "Une Fille difficile"... Moroder crosses the field, Adjani of Pull Marine shows up on the surface, Jeannette flickers nearby.
It is striking to take note of this album's homogenity, which reunites, however, several producers and whose lyrics come from absolute newcomers, inspired one after the other by Baudelaire, Dos Passos or Daho.
Une Enfant du siècle has been guided towards exactitude by a desire of art not of power. Enameled with miraculous little coincidences, signs of the successful collaborations. And bound by the rigor of Alizée who, difficult girl, sure of her tastes, knew exactly what she wanted.
May the moments be nice where the events refuse their natural course. It's rare that an artist as established takes the risk of breaking from the professional linearity to trace an orbit which only pertains to her. Too rare.
Jean-René Etienne
*1 Though in the fall of 2008 when she had only recently started this, she had just turned 24. this is just like saying she was 23 in 2007 when Pychédélices came out and talking about what a 23 year old woman wanted, though she started the process of getting to work on making that happen in the first half of 2005 when she was still 20. And in fact, I'm not sure how much she has changed. The words she uses in interviews are pretty much the same as 2 years ago; only the music has changed, but boy has it ever. Anyway, just a little aside there. And it's still kind of funny to hear it from Étienne, who despite seeming to have some real insight into Alizée here (either because she told him about stuff or because it's not hard to figure out) undoubtedly knows her and her situation less well than some of us who have been "studying" her for years longer than he's known much of anything about her. Aside number 2.
*2 Sounds like strobe lights
*3 Z series – crappiest quality movies below B grade or even C grade
*4 According to Aupick at WordReference.com: "Cinéma d'auteur, however, is specifically films where the director usually also writes the script, does the editing, cinematography, etc., thus having major control over other aspects of the film than just directing, as if its his or her film. Most of these films are also art house and independent, but there's a different emphasis."
±1 I'm still not quiet sure what all that meant.
personnagesnot quite done with this section
Where une enfant du siècle is presented
I. Prolog
At the hour when, taken by a crazy historiographic passion, the journalists compile all the lists possible, calculated or subjective, with the aim of tracing the final portrait of the passing decade, we are allowed these observations: of the ten best selling singles in France in 2000, the first was a reprise of Claude François, three were a product of the same musical comedy, two signaled the return of old legends from another time. The only group represented has since separated.
Alizée, in era number three, has traversed the period on a tightrope, on the unstable line of public affection, and we find her on the other side of the abyss, as herself. She could, like so many others, not care but to protect her career, carefully handle her dividends, look after the industry of her notoriety. The rails are there, it would suffice to follow them. This is precisely what she has chosen not to do.
II. Where the young girl turns to the idol
The life of Alizée reads like one of these generational novels which, from an increasingly greater perspective, sets out to retake the entirety of recent time and expound upon the epoch. It's the story of a young girl transformed at 16 years of age into an ambivalent idol by the greatest French star and her Pygmalion. "Moi... Lolita": more than a million and a half disks sold.
At the age when one forms the subject (in other words, when one is establishing oneself in life), Alizée found herself instituted as the object (of adoration) and installed in a lasting fashion under the gaze of the multitude. And that goes for the idol like the novel according to Stendhal, it's 'a mirror that one promenades the length of a course/path'. The era that reflects itself in this one held out by Farmer & Boutonnat tried to pass through the millennium without too much encumbrance, in redefining along the way childhood, womanhood and desire.
Alizée passes the bounds and borders, Tokyo, Top of the Pops, more than four million disks enjoy their cheer in the world. Then, she is 18 years old, she's has enough, she would like to swim against the current, and that's what she does, kind of.
III. Where, from girl to woman, she knows what she wants
The novel of the young girl is written in such a manner that the accidents and turns of her life recreate, on a personal scale, certain movements of the common cultural history. She marries a defector of Star Academy. In Las Vegas. Her name appears in the Clearstream listings. She breaks up with her artistic parents and, sometimes, takes to the maquis.
For an idol to function, reflect, she must have no "edge" and be available (that is to say, she must have no distinguishing characteristics of her own, perhaps be a blank slate upon which one can project that which is needed to please the crowds as one might say that Farmer did with Alizée in the beginning.). And now Alizée has a child. Then returns, animated by a certain idea of independence. Her third album will be released on her own label, Wisteria Song, licensed to Sony. She will have produced it herself, surrounded by her family and artists that she admires (Jérémy Châtelain, Jean Fauque, Oxmo Puccino, Daniel Darc, Bertrand Burgalat...). Psychédélices is a gold disk in France (though to be honest, one must admit, this has to do with expected popularity, not actual popularity as indicated by "consumer sales"); the album finished the year in fourth place of French foreign sales (sales of French music to foreigners); Alizée becomes a superstar in South America (ok, technically Mexico is part of North America, but that's what they meant); she plays (as herself) in a telenovela followed by more than 75 million spectators.
IV. Where the young woman refuses, knocks down, and reconstructs
But that's not enough. After three albums of classic "variété", Alizée wants a departure. Not just a step to the side. She is 25 years old *1, it's time that the story takes a new turn and gains in strangeness.
It's at the detour of a remix that she crosses the path of the label, Institubes, known for having brought it's bit to the grand French electronic machine, and it's a gesture of defiance that opens this new chapter. David Rubato entrusted a remix of "Fifty Sixty" to the attention of clubs and DJs. With disregard of the order, he plunges the morcel into a bath of slowness and shows it a new trajectory, in the form of a Gainsbourgian diversion. Beyond electro, much more than a particular sound, it's this art of controled blundering that won over Alizée.
Voilà, a new field of possibilities opens itself up: it's not going to be about sucking the life-blood from an esthetic, about slipping nimbly into the uniform of the moment, like Madonna would do, but rather to organize the meeting of two languages, of two cultures developing their works and their codes each on their own. It's not that Alizée is fed up with "variété", it's that she wants finally to be able to formulate her own. From there comes the risk. From there comes the courage.
From there comes the detour. In surrounding herself with young producers and authors who's specialty is not variété, but electro or indy pop, and in asking them to write for her, and if for no other reason, in departing as much from their register as she strayed from her's, Alizée obtained what she wanted: a great novel, a drama.
V. Where one presents A.
The artistic team comes together very quickly. From this initial song "Fifty Sixty" survive some fragments of fiction and a character: a young girl that we are calling "A." At the height of the Warhol era, A. leaves her small home town to ascend to New York. She pursues the wild dreams of the time, the pop electricity, the arty bohemia, the promises of the feverish all nighters (nights where one never gets to sleep from being out partying or whatever). But also the overturning of values, the revolution of morals. But also social cruelty, mercantile cynicism, urbane extremism.
Unfortunately, A. suffers an anachronistic maladie: romantism. She searches for love in spite of Andy, finds it, loses it. The passage of this young girl through a rather short moment in time is evoked from one song to the next; she disappears, returns, fades out, fuses with Alizée, detaches from her; she haunts the disk like a fantome.
VI. Where the story of the disk is told
The future will easily come into fashion. An underlay of chrome and three lasers suffice to impose amazing jumps in time, grandiose accelerations. *2 Une enfant du siècle could have been able to profit from the curriculum of it's tutelary label (having guardian status) and to attempt the electro adventure, to treat itself to a little sci-fi joyride, a Z grade *3 of anticipation. But Alizée, this Alizée who knew how to traverse the decade while keeping a pure heart, would be incapable of insincerity. She came to find the means to a new liberty, not to slum with the underground. ±1
It is striking to take note of this album's diversity. The electric trek of "Limelight", the auteur cinema*4 of "Grand Central", the angular fragility of "À Cœur fendre", the grand nostalgic angle of "Eden, Eden", the tragic purity of "La Candida", the elegiac arpeggios of "Une Fille difficile"... Moroder crosses the field, Adjani of Pull Marine shows up on the surface, Jeannette flickers nearby.
It is striking to take note of this album's homogenity, which reunites, however, several producers and whose lyrics come from absolute newcomers, inspired one after the other by Baudelaire, Dos Passos or Daho.
Une Enfant du siècle has been guided towards exactitude by a desire of art not of power. Enameled with miraculous little coincidences, signs of the successful collaborations. And bound by the rigor of Alizée who, difficult girl, sure of her tastes, knew exactly what she wanted.
May the moments be nice where the events refuse their natural course. It's rare that an artist as established takes the risk of breaking from the professional linearity to trace an orbit which only pertains to her. Too rare.
Jean-René Etienne
*1 Though in the fall of 2008 when she had only recently started this, she had just turned 24. this is just like saying she was 23 in 2007 when Pychédélices came out and talking about what a 23 year old woman wanted, though she started the process of getting to work on making that happen in the first half of 2005 when she was still 20. And in fact, I'm not sure how much she has changed. The words she uses in interviews are pretty much the same as 2 years ago; only the music has changed, but boy has it ever. Anyway, just a little aside there. And it's still kind of funny to hear it from Étienne, who despite seeming to have some real insight into Alizée here (either because she told him about stuff or because it's not hard to figure out) undoubtedly knows her and her situation less well than some of us who have been "studying" her for years longer than he's known much of anything about her. Aside number 2.
*2 Sounds like strobe lights
*3 Z series – crappiest quality movies below B grade or even C grade
*4 According to Aupick at WordReference.com: "Cinéma d'auteur, however, is specifically films where the director usually also writes the script, does the editing, cinematography, etc., thus having major control over other aspects of the film than just directing, as if its his or her film. Most of these films are also art house and independent, but there's a different emphasis."
±1 I'm still not quiet sure what all that meant.
personnagesnot quite done with this section