pages 12-15 are not part of the interview and not included here
If you became a star in Japan, it's also because the country suits you. You care particularly for mangas and the new technologies, no?
Yes, I am passionate about informatics [computerized stuff] and Japanese animations. I've always liked them and when I disembarked for Tokyo, having three hours in fifteen days for shopping (note: that sucks)
it was necessary to choose between clothes, mangas and gadgets. I was in front of a sort of Eurodisney times a thousand! I like the manga "Doctor Slump", a Japanese comic (ie: from Akira Toriyama) not so well known in France. Other than that, I've seen all the "Sailor Moon", "Dragon Ball" and "Nicky Larson". One does not start over. I am a girl of the 80s and of the Dorothée generation (note: apparently referring to the tv show Club Dorothée).
80s generation: there's nothing better to describe the sound of Psychedelices, so very referential of the eighties. Which are the parts reminiscient of childhood or discovered more recently?
I love the artistic expressions that were born in the 80s. In music, I have the impression that one had more fun (note: me too) and that it was one of the most interesting periods in terms of sound research. Obviously, there are good and bad sides to the 80s. The objective of my side was to not trade in the cheap or the "ready-to-sing". I did not want to imitate and I wanted a sound at the same time young and modern. I think we came to sprinkle the album with references and to work as we went more than being in well defined atmospheres according to the songs. Jérémy (i.e. Jérémy Châtelain, composer and director of the majority of Psychédélices, her husband and the father of her daughter) and the musicians were delighted and wondered often how their predessesors obtained certain sounds. That was fun to find old machines to bring back the time. We all have vague memories of songs rooted in in us that our parents listened to. Furthermore, I have been a great admirer of Madonna since those years of True Blue and Like a Prayer.
Yes, I in particular had the experience several years back when I got a record player and a bunch of records that my parents had back in the 70's or so. Listening to certain songs for the first time in many many years instantly brought back a memory of listening to that from an 8 track casette tape in my father's truck. I have lived through that experience of rediscovering all that music that I loved from my early childhood even before I developed musical tastes of my own. I still like some of it, though I haven't really listened to it for quite some time. The record player is defunct and I haven't bought CD versions of all of it. Oh well, at some point one must move on I suppose. Alizée will change yet again and her music if she makes it will be different yet again. It will be great to find what she has to offer next.
Ok, I'm a bit older than Alizée, but I remember me and my sister listening to Madonna when I was a little kid – certainly not my parents music.
Those were the days of
Like a Virgin.
You have frequently revisted Madonna on television, with "La isla bonita" in a broadcast that was dedicated to her in June 2003, and "Hung Up" on the 5th of last April for the release of the film Disco. Whenever there is a possibility, you jump at the chance?
It was happenstance for that last broadcast. I was invited to participate there and we needed a hit to reprise. I went in search of a bit of disco not too dated, not too ridiculous and in good taste. Finally, when "Hung Up" was brought up, I did not hesitate. I remain objective and I don't like all of her work. It was not all successful, but she tried everything and she's still there today! I admire the manner in which she has managed her career and brought the public to love her and follow her, whatever her mistakes. (note: interesting for her to say that...)
Her shows are also very impressive and even if these are concerts I appreciate less, they gave me a lot to dream about when I was younger. (note: something doesn't seem right in that translation.)
To last, there are two schools: the European school as of Mylène Farmer – carve out a niche and explore fetishized themes - and the American school as of Madonna - to reinvent onself with each album. Which strategy seems to you the most effective or the most interesting artistically?
I don't think there is a strategy to adopt or a recipe, otherwise people would know about it! It suffices to try to have fun while making the music, while living new experiences and in making things that resemble us at the time one makes them. (note: you go girl
)
As you presented to us in 2000 Gourmandises, Madonna pays also in sweets with Hard Candy. You have inserted a few measures of "Music" in "Moi... Lolita" during your latest performances, and in a remix of "Mademoiselle Juliette", one guesses from Nelly Furtado. Are you taking up the principal of live bootleg?
In concert, I wish to break out and have people be amused and surprised by the mixes. This also allows me to show the public that "Moi... Lolita" may have been a hit, it remains nevertheless a song. (note: not sure about those sentences.)
I'm far from saying that it's easy to compose, but for me who is not a musician and know only to express what I want, it is reassuring to see that by using the same arrangements we can make tens of different songs.
Yes, it's cool how many versions of her earlier songs were made and even MJ and FS. Some of the remix music and vocals are really cool. It's funny how I didn't really care for remixes until I found Alizée. I guess because I never cared that much even if I have listened to other music as much (for a while).
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Do you already have ideas of reprises for your concerts?
I am going to look into the repertoire of Blondie. I don't know how many reprises I will do because I've never done it live. This will be an opportunity for my musicians and me to enjoy ourselves even more.
Would you say that you have suffered a show too micro-managed (note: or perhaps one should say too constrained to every detail) during your last tour?
That tour remains an unforgettable memory. As for my next show, I would like it fully as precise as the old one, but a tiny bit more relaxed actually [laughs] ! (note: well, we saw the results and one can see here anyway that she really did mean a less vigorous or I should say rigorous concert, hense the laugh of understatement. I guess those 2003 concerts were some really serious work.)
What was the soundtrack for the creation of Psychédélices?
I listened to Gorillaz, Mike and Daft Punk, but the album most that has turned the most on my turntable is Hot Fuss from The Killers. (note: I want to sing Mr. Brightside for Alizée.)
There it is, the sound that I like and one of the most obvious references during the recording of my new album. We often listened to "Somebody told me" (note: I kinda like that song, but the actual lyrics drive me a little crazy because they are so bizarre. That's one song for which I wish I did not understand English.)
and also some pieces of Björk and Blondie.
In addition to the eighties, you evoked the golden age of Simon & Garfunkel. What song inspired you from this duo?
My favorite song is "The sound of silence". It reminds me a lot of my childhood because my parents frequently listened to it in the car. (they should have been listening to Crosby, Stills and Nash or America - Gerry Beckley singing Sarah.
Or yeah, in the car Seals & Crofts' Hummingbird. Those guys had such great harmony singing together and so captured the hippie culture at the time, that my parents were into. Go on YouTube and listen to that song and you'll know my early childhood. I haven't thought about that stuff much in a long time, until Alizée went and brought it up.)
On 17 January 2004, you completed your tour at the Zénith of Paris. How did you feel after having returned to your dressing-room?
I was first very proud of having being able to close my tour through the Zénith, but I knew it was time to take a break after four years of madness. During my period of rest, I started to reflect on what I wanted to do musically. The three of us (with Mylène and Laurent) talked about it and decided to separate. (note: it wasn't until over a year after the end of those concerts that it was sort of officially announced that they had separated and of course being 2005 everyone knew Alizée was pregnant by then. Seems like it was not an easy or quick decision to make.)
I wanted to reach out to new music and take my flight!
You have often described this depart as that of a child who has left the family bosom at the age of eighteen years. When one emancipates oneself, it is also done in opposition. You have learned a lot, but what have you wanted to unlearn?
Frankly, not much! This is the best school there is! (note: I guess they're just never going to get her to say it. You know what I mean.)
The months that followed, were they a period of rest or reconstruction?
Of rest of course, but mostly of reflexion! I had some not bad ideas and desires for this third album. I started to work very quickly after the birth of my daughter, to lose the least time possible.
After that, you drew up with Jérémy a sort of ideal list of artists with whom you wished to work. Nicola Sirkis had hinted at a press conference at the Eiffel Tower that you were in contact. Was there any unpublished material born of this meeting?
I like what Indochine has done, particularly since Oli de Sat joined the group. We met, but ultimately it was not done... first for questions of planning and also for a question of feeling. I march to the beat of my heart and humanity. When it doesn't happen, I let it go. (note: She does what she loves and feels right?
I had previously read something about that Indochine had to promote their own album and didn't have time or something. Looks to me like it just got too complicated dealing with a big and busy band like that. When it wasn't working out, she gave up on it? :-( What can I say but that they were supposed to take care of Alizée better than that. But, I think also her point is that she does not dwell on it, but rather moves on to the next thing. I guess if that kind of attitude is what allows her to be happy, then she is successful.)
The most attentive will have noticed in the booklet of Psychédélices a note for Jean-Pierre Pilot and Olivier Schultheis, loyal collaborators of Zazie. Did they propose some compositions for you?
No, they are just friends since Jean-Pierre did the preproduction for Variétés françaises, Jérémy's second album. We saw them a lot and these thanks were an opportunity to show all who had surrounded us since the beginning.
Most of the lyrics in the album were written by Jean Fauque, like the majority of the music, Jérémy Chatelain. How did they function together?
Everything unfolded in parallel. I asked Jean to participate in this disk almost three years ago while explaining to him why I wanted to work with him. I hoped that he would write me one or two songs. Eventually he made for me many more. For his part, Jérémy started to compose, as is his custom, some random melodies from inspiration. Some were definitely not for me, such was just the daily work of a composer. I loved the music that became "Fifty Sixty" and I asked him if he really wanted to save it for me and that it be the first written for my album. I am pretty stubborn and I decided to give this melody to Jean Fauque for him to write a song.
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