Interesting stuff in Alizée related articles

[Aragorn97]

Hello, everyone!

I was reading some of Alizée's interviews and found a couple of interesting things.
I'm talking about two questions she was asked for this megazine:



Here is the translation of the first one:

Do you have other passions besides singing?
A: I've done dancing for 12 years. In the beginning, I wanted to be a dance teacher. I did
theater as well and also...I love football! I don't play it but my little brother does and I watch a
lot of matches on TV.

I don't know if this might sound obvious to some of you, but it seems quite revealing to me: she didn't just want to devote her life to dancing, she actually wanted to be a dance teacher! Obviously this is a 20-year-old interview and she also said "in the beginning", so a lot of things might have changed. But now I'm even more convinced that the dance studio was not a second best but a well-thought choice. Moreover I think Greg's parents were dance teachers as well and he said that he loved that job, so they should be pretty proud of themselves.

The second question is probably a little more intriguing:

Mylène Farmer's lyrics aren't always easy to understand. Has she written more reasonable
things for your album?
A: She does a lot of wordplay but actually, when you read for example the lyrics to Moi
Lolita, it's very easy to understand. She told me: "you'll see, the kids are going to understand
it like this and the adults, they'll understand in an different way." For her, each song has two
different meanings.

This means that she actually knew what she sang. We don't know if Mylene was completely clear, but I presume she made Alizée understand what the purpose of the lolita image was. And back then Alizée might have been naive, but I think also intelligent. I think she was mature enough to glean how things work in those environments. Moreover Mylene often asked her opinion on various topics, so I guess Alizée was conscious of what she was doing... I think she had a lot of fun by playing that role. At least at the beginning.


Um, did I choose the right section for this thread?

[CleverCowboy]

Originally Posted by Shepherd

Before Greg and Alizee opened their studio but were talking about it, I did a search on Google Maps for dance studios in Ajaccio and was astounded to find a dozen or so. I didn't believe Ajaccio was big enough to support that many, and thought G&A would be foolish to open another. Well, as we see they have been very successful. Since Scruffy raised the issue again today, I did another search and found the number of studios significantly reduced. I wonder if Gregg and Alizee drove the others out of business. Even so, I counted 8 studios still remaining today. I'm amazed that Ajaccio can support that many. The city has a population of 66,245. Dance students would make up a small percentage of those under the age of 20, I don't know how to calculate that number.

I imagine it's like any other business. If you deliver value better than the other businesses, you win. It looks like lately they carved a niche by teaching kids how to ballroom dance. Still, there can't be a lot of money in it. Corsica has a higher unemployment rate than France as a whole, so the dance studios are really competing against each other for whatever customers are out there with expendable cash.

Originally Posted by Shepherd

Evidently, there's a dramatic cultural difference. San Antonio is in the Bible Belt and there seems to be a church on every two or three blocks. Storefront churches that service congregations smaller than a couple hundred people are popular. San Antonio is also host to several of the largest televangelist ministries in America. The Baptists believe it's a sin to dance and they make up the majority of churches in San Antonio. Perhaps that explains the discrepancy between the two cities.

I come from a Baptist background and lived around Houston for 30 years, so I can speak to this topic. The SBC (Southern Baptist Convention) doesn't really micromanage the culture of member churches, so basically the leadership of the church does that. There is a lot of variance in culture from church to church. Some can be extremely strict, but I found this to be the exception and not the rule. Basically they condemn the "bump and grind" type dancing you might find young people doing in nightclubs. Dancing with your spouse or types of dances which require "minimal" contact such as the two step or ballroom dance don't cause any concerns in my experience. I have also had the pleasure of visiting a black Baptist church, which was a very lively experience. Lots of dancing while they are singing.

Besides, the more you tell young people that they can't do this or can't do that, the more likely they want to do it.

[Aragorn97]

Originally Posted by CleverCowboy

Besides, the more you tell young people that they can't do this or can't do that, the more likely they want to do it.

Yep

[Shepherd]

I've been amazed at the ability of AAm members to hunt down minutia on Alizee. I've mentioned a number of times how impressed I am by their ability to determine the very rock she sat on and the creek in which the rock existed and where in the world all that was. If you're interested in this sort of detective work there's a great documentary on Netflix titled "Don't F**k with Cats" in which amateurs using nothing but the Internet solved a murder in Canada. They were able to predict that a guy who tortured cats and posted the movies on the Internet was about to advance to murdering people. They figured out his identity, analyzed his psychology, and tracked his movements around the world. They figured out that he had murdered a guy in a Canadian town before the police in that town knew a murder had taken place. This is not fiction, it really happened.

[Aragorn97]

This is not from an article but it may be interesting anyway.
According to spanish Wikipedia, Alizée is also known as Princess of French Pop. I presume this name is only used in Mexico, but it's nice :]

[24Shepherd24]

Happy Birthday to Maestro Laurent Boutonnat

[Scruffydog777]

Originally Posted by 24Shepherd24

Happy Birthday to Maestro Laurent Boutonnat

Happy birthday Laurent!

Here is what the poster of that video said about it.....

"Here is an instrumental demo by Laurent Boutonnat, which has never been finalized. We immediately recognize his style (rhythm, instruments, chords, melody). Listening to the sounds used, we note that some are identical to those of "Moi ... Lolita" and "L'Alizé", titles that Laurent had composed in 2000 for Alizée. The piano notes also recall Alizée's first titles. This demo is therefore probably a drop from the album "Gourmandises" ..."