Quote:
Originally Posted by Scruffydog777
We had a member here by the name of Corsaire who was Canada and he was bilingual speaking both English and French. He was probably about the same age of you. He seemed to think that every song written by MF/LB had a sexual meaning to it. I find that hard to believe, but when you're speaking in Freudian terms, anything and just about everything can have sexual meanings in it or to it. He proposed to me that he wanted to discuss in the forum the deeper sexual meanings in these songs. I ran it by the other mods (back when I was a mod) and they shot it down.
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I have a little bit of time today to respond to this and give my thoughts on what I think was Alizee's mistakes. Still looking forward to yours.
I ran across some of Corsaire's posts. I happen to not agree with him on this. I think somebody that reads sexual meanings into everything probably has issues themselves. I think Freud was a bit of a quack along with being brilliant in some areas. I just don't buy everything he believed.
Moving on now...
I don't want to sound harsh, but Alizee's singing comeback was a massive Fail. Three years of being a recluse didn't help at all, of course. There are some old threads on this site where some of the posts were very critical of her for not communicating with her fans, and they were getting angry. People just moved on and found new artists to listen to.
But I believe her Fail was the lack of rebranding herself. Psychédélices was not a bad album - in fact it was quite good. But who was the target audience? The album seemed to have something for every age group, and crossed music genres. I remember buying albums from a new group when I was younger because I liked a song I heard on the radio, and how disappointed I was when all the other songs on the album were completely different. I certainly would not buy an album now because I liked only one song on it, let alone go see them in concert.
Her fan base was mainly people around her age and younger. She was 24 when Psychédélices was released. She was still insanely beautiful and had a new hip haircut. The album was a kick in the shin to her fans in that it didn't target them, and seemed to cater to an older audience, except for a few songs. She was about the same age as Madonna, her idol, when Madonna hit the airwaves, but didn't learn a thing from her. Madonna came on the scene and made music that was upbeat, fun and dance-able. Every girl in her age group and down wanted to be like her. Turn on the radio and Madonna was playing. Go to a club and Madonna was playing and the dance floor was full (I was clubbing back in those days so I can attest to this). As the years went on, Madonna's music became more sophisticated, but her fans got older too and related to these changes, plus she kept adding more fans as she went along. I wonder if it ever occurred to Alizee to reach out to Madonna for some mentoring? I think Madonna might have helped her some.
If Alizee put together an album that was upbeat, fun, and dance-able, along the lines of the song Decollage, her music career might still be going strong today. She would have gotten maximum exposure for her music and might have made inroads in the US. In my opinion, most of her original fan base would have stayed, because after all, we all like to see Alizee dance with her songs. But no, she didn't do that, nor with her next album, or the album after that. Blonde was pretty good, but too late. And frankly, she had graffiti all over her beautiful body by that time and that turned a lot of people off.
So, multiple mistakes and it is such a shame. I still adore this woman and always will, and that is why it bothers me. I wanted to see her succeed.