Une Enfant Du Siècle News/Discussion!

[wasabi622]

Originally Posted by Roman

As to that, if I must give my opinion (and I guess I must) I'd say that all the serious effort was put into creating the album, and the promotion was more like tossed in afterward rather than being an integral part of the product. Even there, some parts of that effort were good, just not great and the timing of things was not great either. By timing, I mean, build buzz and then deliver when it's at it's peak and deliver with something impressive. I get the idea that Alizée just wasn't as interested in that part of the adventure. She doesn't have time for it. And that's along side simply not great response and 2008/9 being bad years what with all the global depression and so forth. Then, to speak of the album. I think people were expecting more of a dance album from Alizée. Something high energy and "poppy". There was a little on there, but not like we figured she might do. And of course, Alizée 2007 was competing with Alizée 2000-2003 and that's a hard act to follow.

i dunno. i felt that Psych was definitely more "poppy" than the MCE. i mean, JEAM could be considered poppy and dance-like, but that's just because Alizee made it so. but other than that, i feel that the only poppy songs from her previous albums are probably Moi...Lolita, J'ai Pas Vingt Ans, Gourmandises, C'est Trop Tard, and A Contre-Courant.

whereas in pysch, most were would id call poppy. MJ, Fifty Sixty, Jamais Plus, Decollage, Lilly Town, Mon Taxi Driver, Lonely town..

but no doubt in the lack in the dance department.

[pepelepew]

Psych was a good album, piss poor promotion, wardrobe and performances. Nuff said.

[wasabi622]

Originally Posted by pepelepew

Psych was a good album, piss poor promotion, wardrobe and performances. Nuff said.

dunno about the wardrobe. the only wardrobe i didn't like was the weird vest thingy she wore at the concert in augacalientes.

other than that, im down with it! not the sophisticated sexy lolita, but cute as hell and adorable to me!

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[Scruffydog777]

Originally Posted by Deepwaters

I'm going to completely disagree with this. There are no mediocre songs on Psych.

I respectfully completely disagree with your complete disagreement. PLP was a beautiful song, as good as any on her first two albums. Fifty sixty and Lillytown were okay, they sounded very similar to me, but they did not show case the beauty in her voice the way songs like Lou ou Toi, or Amelie m'a dit, Ella Ella, J'ai pas vingt ans or A Contre Courant and so many other songs that were on her first two albums did. What beauty is there in singing through a megaphone?

Beauty is definitely in the eye of the beholder or in the case of music, the ear of the beholder and there are a lot of different tastes out there. But the fact that two concerts were cancelled seems to point out that the majority of people, at least in France did not like the music of Psych. A lot is said that Alizée doesn't put that much effort into her dancing any more and a lot of people including myself think she could do a lot to improve her appearence on stage, but to be perfectly honest, it doesn't matter if she doesn't dance at all, doesn't quite matter how she looks. If the music is good the people will come.

If they had done a much better job of promoting her last two concerts in Paris, they probably would not have had to cancel them, but back in the days of MCE and Gour, they probably didn't have to do any promoting. They could have just put a poster up on the side of a theater with Alizée's name and a date along side all the posters of other singers, and I'm sure the theater would have been mobbed.

But with Psych, in my opinion, everything was lacking. The music, her appearence, her dancing, then re-orchestrating those beautiful songs of her first two albums, then the lack of promotion of the concerts, it's no wonder they were cancelled.

Hopefully this new album will change all that. Only time will tell. Has she learned anything from all this. We'll find out next year.

[Roman]

Originally Posted by wasabi622

i dunno. i felt that Psych was definitely more "poppy" than the MCE. i mean, JEAM could be considered poppy and dance-like, but that's just because Alizee made it so....

Well, yes, that is a good point. MCE didn't really have dance music (except maybe Hey Amigo!. That song definitely did have movement to it.) But, I think we all know why it didn't need it - great music, great vocals, and always of course, the sexy dance to distract us from anything else that might enter the mind (such as that, oh yeah, every tv performance is done with a backing track rather than live vocals which we may be too naïve to notice anyway). And then Alizée's glowing charm besides...

Dang! Thinking about all this just makes me want to see Alizée perform something new again. I hope there's something good coming up. Surprise me (just not tooo much if you know what I mean)!

Originally Posted by Scruffydog777

...
If they had done a much better job of promoting her last two concerts in Paris, they probably would not have had to cancel them, but back in the days of MCE and Gour, they probably didn't have to do any promoting. They could have just put a poster up on the side of a theater with Alizée's name and a date along side all the posters of other singers, and I'm sure the theater would have been mobbed.
...

Actually, they did a lot of promoting in 2003. We have the television commercials and posters to prove it. Of course they did and needed to. They had the money to do so because they had sales to back it and the expectation of getting good concert sales. And in fact, some of her concerts in 2003 were not sold out, albeit she did like 42 concerts.

Obviously, not everyone saw the charm and appeal that we see. I think people had difficulty taking her seriously - as a singer and as a personality. There was a bit of, "she's for little girls", much like people have and still do take Britney Spears here. But for one thing, she had momentum at the time and they moved on it. Still, that album in that year did not sell nearly as well as the first. That may be partially why Alizée left that scene - she didn't see the success she expected, though she pretty much denied that being the reason. It was hard for me to see why Alizée would not be more popular back then and I'm still not really sure about it.

[Scruffydog777]

Originally Posted by Roman

Actually, they did a lot of promoting in 2003. We have the television commercials and posters to prove it. Of course they did and needed to. They had the money to do so because they had sales to back it and the expectation of getting good concert sales. And in fact, some of her concerts in 2003 were not sold out, albeit she did like 42 concerts.

The only reason they needed to was to try and make as much money in as short a space a time as they could while she was still at the height of her popularity. Those 42 concerts were I believe in about a little over a two month period. It's not surprising that not all of them sold out. In Paris alone I believe they scheduled 6 shows at the Olympia in a little over a week. The point I was trying to make is if they had only scheduled one show in Paris, with very little promotion, they probably would have had a line stretching from the Olympia, all the way to the Eiffel tower. That might be a stretch of the imagination ,seeing how I've actually have walked that route and know how long it is (my dogs are still barking at me), but that theater would have been packed.

[Deepwaters]

Originally Posted by Scruffydog777

I respectfully completely disagree with your complete disagreement. PLP was a beautiful song, as good as any on her first two albums. Fifty sixty and Lillytown were okay, they sounded very similar to me, but they did not show case the beauty in her voice the way songs like Lou ou Toi, or Amelie m'a dit, Ella Ella, J'ai pas vingt ans or A Contre Courant and so many other songs that were on her first two albums did. What beauty is there in singing through a megaphone?

What you're saying here reinforces what I was saying. You don't really disagree. It's not that the songs were "mediocre," it's that some of them appealed to your taste while others didn't. The ones that do in your case are fewer in number than in my case, and you seem to be having some trouble stepping out of your own skin and seeing how a song that doesn't personally appeal to you might nevertheless be a very good song of its kind.

Probably the most widely disliked song from Psych is Decollage. But that's not because it's not a good song. It's because it's rap/hip-hop, and Alizée singing rap/hip-hop does not compute for a lot of people. She does not have a classic rapper voice. People who liked her earlier music often don't like that style, and people who do like that style don't think of her as a singer of it.

As for showcasing her voice, there are two songs in all the years she has been singing which do that best IMO, and they are Coeur déja pris from MCE -- and Idealiser from Psych.

I understand you didn't like the megaphone part of 50/60. Can you see that there's a difference between saying that you don't personally like something, and saying that it's mediocre?

But the fact that two concerts were cancelled seems to point out that the majority of people, at least in France did not like the music of Psych.

Not necessarily. I think there was a peculiar dynamic going on between Alizée and her French fans. Her old audience consisted mostly of younger people who liked the simple pop sound and the image of the innocent-but-sexy teenage girl. A lot of those were unable to bridge the style gap between the old and the new, and not enough effort was put into connecting with the new audience that she needs to acquire. To put it simply, if she's not going to sing in the same old way, she needs to appeal to a new audience. So I think it was a promotion problem, not just of the concerts but of the whole album and comeback.

Hopefully this new album will change all that.

To be perfectly blunt, if you were as disappointed in Psych as you say, then you will probably be disappointed in the new album too.

[Scruffydog777]

Originally Posted by Deepwaters

......... and you seem to be having some trouble stepping out of your own skin and seeing how a song that doesn't personally appeal to you might nevertheless be a very good song of its kind.

Well apparently there are a lot of people in France who are having trouble stepping out or their skin too. Two cancelled concerts and disappointing record sales in France prove that. You can try and twist this any way you want but the proof is in the numbers and those numbers aren't very impressive to put it mildly.

[Deepwaters]

Originally Posted by Scruffydog777

Two cancelled concerts and disappointing record sales in France prove that. You can try and twist this any way you want but the proof is in the numbers and those numbers aren't very impressive to put it mildly.

I'm not trying to twist anything. No, they aren't very impressive, and that's proof of something, no doubt -- but of what? You were saying that the music itself was a problem. I'm not saying there was NO problem, only that that wasn't it. Credit where it's due. It's a wonderful album. The promotion was very poor. Alizée's performances early in her comeback were also very poor. Right after the Moscow concert, though, she changed; it was as if a switch were thrown, the energy and the interaction with the audience were back. She was as good as any of the TV performances she used to do in the old days. The concerts in Mexico weren't quite as well-choreographed as the ones in 2003-4, but they were very good just the same.

Psych needed to find its own audience. Her old fans could not be counted on to come back, especially when she changed so much. That's where I think a part of her mistake lay. She did not realize, perhaps, how much effort would be required. It was naive. You were disappointed, because you didn't hear the same sort of music you were used to from her. So were a lot of her French fans, I would say. Since she had decided not to sing the same sort of music, she needed to market the music she was singing to a new audience -- NOT to her old fans. She failed to do that.

THAT is the lesson she needs to learn this time around -- NOT that she should return to the same sort of simple pop Laurent wrote for her. She can succeed singing the type of music she wants to sing, but she has to recognize that it's music for a new audience, not the old one.

I wasn't disappointed the way you were, because I wasn't surprised. She had said she was moving in new directions and I took her at her word. But I can understand how a lot of her old fans had a problem with it. No matter. Move on to new ones. That's the only way to do it.

[Fenris]

Originally Posted by Deepwaters

Psych needed to find its own audience. Her old fans could not be counted on to come back, especially when she changed so much. That's where I think a part of her mistake lay. She did not realize, perhaps, how much effort would be required. It was naive. You were disappointed, because you didn't hear the same sort of music you were used to from her. So were a lot of her French fans, I would say. Since she had decided not to sing the same sort of music, she needed to market the music she was singing to a new audience -- NOT to her old fans. She failed to do that.

THAT is the lesson she needs to learn this time around -- NOT that she should return to the same sort of simple pop Laurent wrote for her. She can succeed singing the type of music she wants to sing, but she has to recognize that it's music for a new audience, not the old one.

I wasn't disappointed the way you were, because I wasn't surprised. She had said she was moving in new directions and I took her at her word. But I can understand how a lot of her old fans had a problem with it. No matter. Move on to new ones. That's the only way to do it.

I agree with deepwaters here. I like Alizée's first albums and i love Psych too, but i'm fully aware that most of the old fans had problems with the new direction Alizée has taken, and that i'm part of a minority being able to like both.

The public in France obviously did not take her effort of independence seriously...there was no clear message what the "new Alizée" stood for.
While the old fans were alienated, she failed to aquire a significant new following.
Bad management decisions and promotion made things worse.
As for the new album...i expect that fans of the "old" Alizée will be even more alienated by "une enfant du siècle" than by psych...ofc this is speculative atm..
The question is: Will the new album appeal to enough people who don't know Lili yet? Will she be able to aquire new groups of fans?
More speculation..ultimately we'll have to wait and see..