Alizee's Career - what went wrong?

[Scruffydog777]

There are a lot of people in France who are not Mylene Farmer fans and they didn't buy the album either, because it just wasn't that good.

[Panther]

Originally Posted by Scruffydog777

There are a lot of people in France who are not Mylene Farmer fans and they didn't buy the album either, because it just wasn't that good.

Is that a fact? I'd be very interested to see the research that you carried out in order to test and confirm each of those three contentions and arrive at that conclusion. Can you show me it? - or is this yet another one of your sweeping generalisations based entirely on unsubstantiated conjecture?

Fact: Psyches didn't sell as well in France as Alizee's first two studio albums.

Opinion: all the guesses as to why it didn't sell as well proffered by people who cannot actually know, for certain, what the real reasons were.

Can you see the difference here?

[Taxi Driver Aaron]

Originally Posted by Panther

Is that a fact? I'd be very interested to see the research that you carried out in order to test and confirm each of those three contentions and arrive at that conclusion. Can you show me it? - or is this yet another one of your sweeping generalisations based entirely on unsubstantiated conjecture?

Fact: Psyches didn't sell as well in France as Alizee's first two studio albums.

Opinion: all the guesses as to why it didn't sell as well proffered by people who cannot actually know, for certain, what the real reasons were.

Can you see the difference here?

I fail to see the difference.

[Rev]

Originally Posted by Taxi Driver Aaron

I am just ignoring this thread altogether.

What thread?

[melovelily]

[lefty12357]

Each album Alizée put out sold less than the previous one. It has been a downward trajectory since the first album. MF/LB, Alizée and “Moi, Lolita” converged at one point in time to create the perfect storm. Such things can’t be predetermined with any assurance nor easily repeated. Alizée was very fortunate to be a part of something like “Moi, Lolita” that became so big. But many, many artists see their popularity fall off after an initial big success. That’s the nature of the industry she is in. Even if Alizée did everything that everybody believes to be the right things to do, she may still have lost popularity and sales.

Alizée’s long break, getting married, becoming a mother, leaving MF/LB, lack of a solid promotion for the last 2 albums, canceled concerts, fired managers and a host of other smaller details are also play some part in it. Add to all this that much of France had forgotten about her and didn’t seem interested in hearing from her again. And how many French people got a chance to hear songs from her last 2 albums? The radio stations gave her little to no airtime. So she has also had to deal with a mindset that sees her as a has-been. And during the whole time, the record industry had been slipping as a whole. It is a complex set of circumstances over a decade of time that have determined Alizée's current situation.

Personally, I like Psych and in my opinion PLP is one of the best songs Alizée ever did. But how many people in France ever got to hear it? And it’s really easy with hindsight to say she should have done this or that at a particular juncture, but she and her team didn’t have the luxury of knowing the future.

If the stars align for her and she ends up with the right team, the right songs and arrangements, the right promo and a receptive audience, she can have success again. But that’s a lot of “ifs”. The question in my mind is, how much does she really want success and how much work is she willing to do for it? In the end, I guess I would call Alizée a success if she meets or exceeds the goals she has set for herself. But her idea of success may not meet the threshold of what the average person considers a success for a career in music. Let's just hope it meets the expectations of her record company.

[User22]

Very nice post to read Lefty. I hopeAlizée is happy with the track she is on now. And things are looking better for October 1st than they did for UEDS, since more boxes have been sold than last time (that we know of)

[lefty12357]

Thanks Aaron. I have hopes for the new album. I'm not expecting a huge hit, but I'm hoping for a move in the positive direction.

[Ray4AJ]

Originally Posted by lefty12357

In the end, I guess I would call Alizée a success if she meets or exceeds the goals she has set for herself.

Yes Lefty, nice post. I've been thinking about this stuff all day, and reading posts, and thinking some more. I've given people advice before. Sometimes they asked for it and sometimes they didn't. Sometimes they listened, and sometimes they didn't. But it was always about things or people I was familiar with. I don't know anything about the music business or what Alizée thinks or wants, and I have no real idea about what went on behind the scenes during her career up until now. So I'm going to adopt for myself what I quoted from Lefty, which I think is where I was heading anyway.

[Un-rêve]

It's always the early stuff that fans like most.. well it's nothing new, many artists are in the same predicament as our beloved Alizée.