How much does the French language have to do with the Alizee affect?

[Scruffydog777]

What I mean by the Alizee affect (or is it effect? I never could get those two straight.) is the affect she has on me and I assume a few others in here that has us listening to her music far, far beyond the point where we would have grown tired of listening to any other singers music.

There are I think many factors why we like her performances so much. First and most important of course is her beautiful voice. Second and third have to be the music in the songs and the lyrics of the song, in which order I'm not sure.

But there are many other factors in why we like her performances so much. There's her physical beauty, her inner beauty and her great dancing ability to name a few. But I think the French language plays a very important part too. It is regarded by many as if not the most beautiful language, at least a very close second to Italian (In my opinion, French is 1st.).

So I think her singing mostly in French is a very important factor in why I like her music so much. Do others in here feel the same or do you think it doesn't matter what language she sings in?

I put together a video that has what I think are some of the most beautiful French passages of some of her songs.

<iframe width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/oHv5je_bBE8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>


Looking back I'd have to say my love of the French language or maybe a more accurate way of putting it is my love of beautiful French women speaking the language started when I was a kid and I saw the Disney movie Moon pilot which had the French actress Dany Saval in it. She appears in this movie segment at about the 3:25 mark of this movie clip.

<iframe width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/HeEs31K3RZI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

[Chuck]

Hey Scruffy! Great, classic vids there!

But how much does the language have to do with it? A lot, I think. Earlier on, when first discovering about Lili, I imagined she'd sound great in any language. But soon I found I really disliked the english lyrics of her "translated" songs, and most of her English-singing performances on youtube seemed to be lacking something, somehow. (One big exception being LIB, of course.)

So this is mostly old stuff we're talking about. As for newer stuff, ehh, Limelight and Les Collines both had some pretty weak english lyrics (again), I thought. Collines might've even had a good chance at some American radio airplay if only that whole second verse had been all english. (But at least her singing in English does seem to be improving more and more!) Yet i digress..

I think if Alizée'd been born in Brazil, I'd like her singing best in Portuguese. And if she came from Ukraine, then in Ukranian. And if she'd been born in the US or UK, then she'd probably do best using English. An awful lot seems to depend on how comfortable a singer (and/or her lyricists) are with whatever language. The most comfortable usually works out the best. Anyone else agree on that ?


PS - The french-accent thing still could really work for Lilly - I do truly love it in "Hung Up" where she sings "the lights are on but there's no one 'ome"

[Bigdan]

And now, let's have a " fun facts" moment....



Up : Dany Saval, french actress.

Down : Vivement Dimanche, host by the most famous host of the French TV, Michel Drucker.
Dany Saval is married to Michel since 1973...

[Aldighieri]

Is Not easy to say about..as Italian I've been curious how italian talk sounds to english or american people.Got few english friends and they said "italian sounds very musical, sweet, not easy to learn language".Probably italian and french sounds close this definition to english-based people. Probably the same way spanish sound to me.
if Alizee french sounds to american(and world) people so good as it work for an italian, I think the effect is BIG!

One of mine fav. italian singers named Elisa Toffoli(very addicted about) have most of her work on english, and really her italian songs don't sound so good.Probably because she "think" in english and after translate them on italian..words have to fit exacly the rhythm to sound so good...
All the french Alizee versions sounds better..with excepion of "la isla bonita". Need Alizee a latin-melodic music to sound good?

[ALS]

1. Her looks and body language catch your eye.
2. The voice then grabs your attention.
3. The French language combines with the above two to finish you off.

The first song I ever heard by Alizée was La Isla Bonita which is all English.
Her looks, body language and voice easily grabbed my attention.

Once I started down the road in late 2004 early 2005 of finding more of her material, it was all in French and I was now fully hooked on Alizée.

[Scruffydog777]

Of her 4 early songs that had both a French and English version, I definitely liked J'ai pas vingt ans and J'en ai marre over there English counter parts but then again I liked her English versions of Youpidoo and Amelie than the French versions though there wasn't that much of a difference with these two compared to the first two I mentioned.

I've mentioned before in the Youpidoo chorus there are several words that I love the way she pronounces them such as walking, talking and something and I suspect that she might pronounce these words differently because the main language she speaks is French. A way that I suspect is different than if she only spoke English and for that reason, they sound better.

<iframe width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/ZT0nAwWlbfM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

[ALS]

I love the way she says QUARTER at 1:54


<iframe width="560" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/BVuYJKMj5Io" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

[Deepwaters]

Simple logic applies here. The source of the "Alizée effect" is something unique to Alizée. Therefore, it is not going to be something that is common to many other performers. Alizée is far from the only performer who speaks/sings French. Therefore, the French language is not a significant part of the cause.

Actually, the cause is a secret.

[Scruffydog777]

Originally Posted by Bigdan

Vivement Dimanche, host by the most famous host of the French TV, Michel Drucker.
Dany Saval is married to Michel since 1973...

That's very ironic.

Originally Posted by Deepwaters

Simple logic applies here. The source of the "Alizée effect" is something unique to Alizée. Therefore, it is not going to be something that is common to many other performers. Alizée is far from the only performer who speaks/sings French. Therefore, the French language is not a significant part of the cause.

Actually, the cause is a secret.

Well you're definitely right in that it's something unique to Alizee, but I think that uniqueness is the result of a combination of several things and I think the French language could be an important part of it and I don't think it's as much a secret as it is a mystery.

[SlipshodDread]

Well French is a romance language like Italian and Spanish (Also obviously Latin, but Latin is for all intents and purposes a dead language). Those three languages sounds fairly similar (I can tell the difference even though I only speak French), but it is mainly the deeper phonetics of the languages that stands out. They all sound more musical and are definitely more suited to music than for instance English (which has a germanic base, but has been influenced by many other languages including the Romance languages)

Obviously French is known as the language of Love, and in a lot of English speaking countries is seen as classy.

With Alizée for most it is definitely her looks that draw them in, and that was the truth in my case. That was obviously because of J'en Ai Marre, but the only other song I heard of hers at that point was La Isla Bonita, which again is all in English.

@ALS; A lot of the French language is pronunciation, and you can see that because a lot of French speakers who are fluent in English often drop the 'h' sounds. And in the post above after listening to the song and reading the comment, I can say that that is what is being done. Obviously "quarter" is similar to "quatre" and in french only the "quat" part is pronounced, and it sounds like "cat".

Knowing that in English we pronounce the last letters makes it sound how she says it, plus just as it is difficult for English speakers to do the French "r" sound, they have to do exactly the same thing in reverse. Also she pronounces the "er" like "À" for the same reason.



Also I think a lot of the reason that people like her is that her and her music are something different from what you regularly and generally hear on public radio etc