Maybe it's time for a new approach.

[Scruffydog777]

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I keep trying to spread the word of Alizée but it's been a very long, slow struggle with very few significant gains. I've given away many dvd's I've made up, and I show her music to just about everyone I can and called music stations asking if there was anyway they could possibly play some of her music but to date, not one station has.Unfortunately I think the fact that most of her better music, especially her songs in English which are so critical for her to have success in this country are over 5 years old, is something radio stations look at if they do ever consider playing her music. Hopefully the release of her new album will change all that.

Her two most recent English songs, Hung up and the Sound of Silence were not original hits and though I enjoy them, quite frankly I'm sure the average listener would much prefer the songs by their original singers. So time I think is weighing heavily against us. Unless this new album has a very good song in English on it, I think were fighting a major battle with a dwindling supply of ammunition, so I think it may be time for a different approach.

I think one thing that could be attractive to some segment of the entertainment industry in this country is the story of Alizée. I've seen the threads for street teams and net teams but that seems to be for contacting the potential fans, or contacting radio stations which in the few times that have worked has only resulted in them playing one of her songs. I think we need to target our efforts in a new direction. Try to get some program to do a story about Alizée that will feature several of her songs. This is what would really get people interested in her music. It's a story that I'm sure a lot of people in this country would enjoy.

How would that story go?

It would start on Corsica, an island off the southern coast of France, where she and also Napoleon were born.
It would also start with her beautiful name. Alizée. Whose parents named her after a tradewind that blows through parts of Africa and the Caribbean because they loved to sail.
Then how she was persuaded by a friend to enter a talent competition as a dancer, couldn't enter the dance competition because it was for teams and she was by herself, so she entered the singing competition instead and came in second, but more importantly, in the process, got noticed by MF (one of France's most successful female artists) and LB (Mf and LB is another interesting story in itself). They talked her and her parents to letting her drop out of high school so she could move to Paris to pursue a career in music, but she still flew home every weekend to be with family and friends.

She released her first song and video when she was still 15. It was controversial, but it was also a huge hit in Europe.

She didn't exactly go from rags to riches, but did go from being a totally unknown to someone who was dancing and singing her way all across Europe in a very short time.

She had a song at #1 on the charts and another at #3 for 3 months in France. Something no other artist had ever accomplished there.

Released 2 albums that met with great success.

Performed at Paris city hall during the 100th running of the Tour de France

Performed at the Eiffel tower on an occassion celebrating the installation of strobe lights all up and down the tower. There were 350,000 people in attendance.

Met a handsome singer/musician. Flew off to Las Vegas to get married!

Disappeared off the radar for over 3 years. Had a baby during that time and is now attemping a comeback.
She released a new album. One that was an experimet for her, trying to find out what style worked best.
Despite doing well in Mexico,she has fallen on tough times in Europe with 2 concerts cancelled within a 6 month span, in Paris, a place she now calls home, cancelled due to low ticket sales (despite what her management says.).

Now she is due to release a new album. Will she have learned from the experiment and once again sell out 6 concerts in one week in Paris as she did back in 2003 or maybe she'll have to cancel another concert, something that would set a more dubious record ( Hey you got to make the story sound interesting if you want someone to cover it.)

Then there's Alizée the person. Who even though she came under the influence of Mylene Farmer at a young age, at a time where she could have been easily influenced by this notorious personality, a very controversial singer/writer who had Alizée singing some controversial songs and wearing some revealing outfits, she never let it affect her as a person. There were never any stories about her being pulled over for dui, no late night parties, no wardrobe malfunctions, no fights with her parents, no train wrecks. Just a person who stayed as beautiful on the inside as she was on the outside.

Then there's the two Stars a Domicile shows. The great story of her and Jessica and the first show too, where her reaction on stage showed you a glimpse of what she the person was like.

Then theres the shows shes done for charity.

So this is what I think is a very interesting story. I'd like to know what other people think. Is this a good approach?
Is there more that should be added? Are there things that should be left out?

I've thought Entertainment tonight would be a great show to try and contact, but it turns out they're a very tough outfit to try and contact, with no direct e-mail contacts, but I've found some contact info for some of the producers which I will pursue.

I sent WGBH a letter. They're a public broadcast company. They cover a lot of international topics and often have music specials. I saw somebody else suggest PBS before and the idea wasn't that well recieved. I think mainly because they have a smaller audience than your name brand networks. But if they ever produced and aired a story on Alizée, I'd bet you a magazine like People would be much more likely to do a story on her.

I sent People magazine a letter. A magazine isn't really the type of media I was looking for, but it could be a good target. It would be awesome to see Alizée's picture in People. They have a lot of readers and I'm sure this would generate a lot of interest in her music.

I sent these two letters out last week, so I haven't heard back yet.

I made up a video to send along with the letter. The original was about 271 MB long. It first showcased her songs in English, which like I said before I think is key for her having success or at least having her story told here. Then I included several of her French songs, first starting off with 4 songs from En Concert so they could hear her "live" voice, and also a clip from Stars a Domicile. Unfortunately it's too big to e-mail. Comcast only allows files 5 MB in size, so I signed up for G Mail because that allows 10 MB, but alas I found most of these e-mail attachments can only be 1 MB in size. So I had to do quite a bit of cutting and the final product is of a poor quality but it's that's the way it has to be then so be it. I'll attach them here so you can see both files for yourselves. The original I wanted to send, then the final product.

When possible, If I get a mailing address, I'll send dvd's to these companies with whatever videos I feel will be best suited for each.
I'm sure a lot of these companies are flooded with e-mails and regular mail, a lot of which probably never get read. If I don't hear back from them. I'll contact them again a few weeks later.

So let me know what your thoughts are on the subject. Has anyone tried this approach before?
And if you think it's a good approach, maybe some people could supply contact info for shows that maybe are exclusive to their part of the country but are shows that do cover the entertainment industry. Getting e-mail addresses or regular mail addresses would be a lot more helpful than just the name of a company.

[lefty12357]

I was thinking about this today as well, after reading another thread. I was preparing a rather lengthy post myself on the subject. I'll put some of it here instead because it follows with what you are saying.

It’s been discussed here before, but it seems people are more likely to become fans if they are allowed to discover Alizée for themselves. We are an enthusiastic bunch and are likely to give people the “hard sell”. People often put up barriers once they are exposed to that.

Getting Alizée played in clubs and on radio would probably work best because it exposes people to her and allows them to discover her for themselves. One of my local radio stations (they do their own programming locally) does requests every Saturday night. They even play Yelle! I requested Alizée and even mailed them Psych so they would have it on hand, but no luck. The wall we have to beat down is mighty strong. Maybe stations like this around the US could be identified and targeted with a more concerted (but measured) effort. We want success, but we don’t want to piss everyone off.

Another possibility is to get the US media to do a story on her. I think Alizée’s story is interesting. She is not like other pop stars, she’s from Corsica, she has US fans and she has been somewhat of an internet phenomenon. There are a lot of interesting angles in which to approach such a story. Disney, what about you? The connection is obvious and I’m sure you could get some mileage out of it as well.

Just a few minutes in prime time is a powerful thing. When I saw like 30 seconds of the video Parler Tout Bas on TV, the imagery, Alizée’s face and voice stuck with me for 5 years. It wasn’t until 2006 that I rediscovered her and put 2 and 2 together. In any case, the seed was planted and I became a fan.

I like the “Disc Drop” idea too, but I’m not sure if it has been very fruitful to date. It may require a massive effort to work. Winning fans over one at a time by word of mouth is fine, but I doubt it will lead to the success we hope for. I wish I had the knowledge, skills or connections to make any of the above happen, but I don’t. If anyone out there has access to a person involved with radio or TV media, maybe we can get an “in” somewhere, or at least some sound advice on how to proceed in such an endeavor.

We probably aren’t lacking in ideas. We are lacking in organization and effort, but I think its coming. However small, there is the possibility of success if our best ideas are identified and put into real action.

I think the bottom line is putting all our good ideas into action. Scruffy, I think the media idea has great possibilities and I hope you are successful. As I said, I wish we had access to an industry insider. It sure would help.

[Alex]

I agree with both of you guys we are beginning to really show Alizee to America. However like lefty12357 we lack in organization. There is a big tough barrier we have to bring down but if we get organized and focus our publicity on main targets like cities, age groups, radio/ TV stations we will succeed. I dont know if anyone has tried this but why no contact SONY music here in the US and tell them to start an official publicuty for Alizee. Anyway we are all doing our part, but once again we have to work together and get organized to reach our goal.

[Ben]

Originally Posted by lefty12357

Another possibility is to get the US media to do a story on her. I think Alizée’s story is interesting. She is not like other pop stars, she’s from Corsica, she has US fans and she has been somewhat of an internet phenomenon. There are a lot of interesting angles in which to approach such a story.

Know you made the same point Scruffy, but Lefty summed it up well. It's a good idea. What we need is an "EPK", or "electronic press kit": typically a ~15 min infomercial-style video made by an artist's promoter and sent out to the media. Ideally a job for someplace like Sony with original footage, but if they won't do it maybe we can. It would entail more than your average fan vid though, like narration explaining the "Alizée story", etc.

[Scruffydog777]

Originally Posted by Ben

Know you made the same point Scruffy, but Lefty summed it up well. It's a good idea. What we need is an "EPK", or "electronic press kit": typically a ~15 min infomercial-style video made by an artist's promoter and sent out to the media. Ideally a job for someplace like Sony with original footage, but if they won't do it maybe we can. It would entail more than your average fan vid though, like narration explaining the "Alizée story", etc.

I'm sure Sony wont do it on there own, so how do we approach them to get them to create such a video? I would think something along the lines of an electronic petition would be good but I think what would be even better is if we could get as many fans as possible to send in individual e-mails with such a request. We'd have to contact the other Alizée forums to get them to help out in order for something like that to work.

[Alex]

Exactly! We all have to group up and send individual letters to radio/tv stations, and yes contact all Alizee forums here in the US to help out. By them receiving many requests of one new artist they will research who this artist is and how successful she has been internationaly.

[Ben]

Originally Posted by Scruffydog777

I'm sure Sony wont do it on there own, so how do we approach them to get them to create such a video? I would think something along the lines of an electronic petition would be good but I think what would be even better is if we could get as many fans as possible to send in individual e-mails with such a request. We'd have to contact the other Alizée forums to get them to help out in order for something like that to work.

Well I meant we could make a video like that ourselves, though yeah maybe that's another way to do it.

[Alex]

Well yeah evryone of us have have different talents and abilities that we could contribute for Alizee's promotion. The thing is whatver we do, is send it all to one place at a time so they could get as many fan promotions as possible. We could work together to do such video organize it well, edited it, mix it and send it. I think we are begginnig to do progress with great ideas!

[alizeeindia]

Originally Posted by Alex405687

Exactly! We all have to group up and send individual letters to radio/tv stations, and yes contact all Alizee forums here in the US to help out. By them receiving many requests of one new artist they will research who this artist is and how successful she has been internationaly.

This one is a real great idea. Only the intensity is required. You need to do what Mexicans did there. But one thing is sure, if she could engulf the entire Europe into her charm, then she can do the same to America as well. And if by the way she becomes a phenomenon in US, she will have some impact in India as Well.

Best of Luck to you, Guyz

[Alex]

There we go! Thanx Alizeeindia for your support! and yes if we could promeote her the correct way in America she could also become a new phenomenon. I mean come on she has conquered Europe, Asia, Latin America, she only needs the United States. We can do it!