Alizée Article Translations by me

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of the closest town, leaving the unfortunate first place girl behind her. Under the strobes, she doesn’t dance jerk (Editor’s note: a moving thought for the fans of Thierry Hazard), but kindles the jealousy of other less desirable women and constraints of playing artifices while searching for their lost youth. She went on the dance floor and becomes the attraction of everybody who has a bit of testosterone, under the proud and dumbstruck look of her little sister, standing on a bar table. It’s the moment that chooses its suitor to leave. A bit lost, he watches her dance until daylight, and at a good distance, follows the two sisters who are going back to the village. The director will not need to look far for the boy in the clip. He is Jerome Devoise, a familiar face on the Farmer team, sound recorder on the Mylène Albums and sidekick of the engineer Bertrand Chatenet. To portray the woman, he uses the help of the Marseille artist Anne-Marie Pisani, who already worked on TV films and ambitious films, such as IP5, Germinal, or Delicatessen. Boutonnat will be faithful to him, offering him a role several years later in his Jacquou Le Croquant (Jacquou the Peasant).

Everything is ready. From the first reactions of the radios from May, we figure out that the song has a good future ahead of it. While Mylène releases “Innamoramento” as an extract of her live album, the single of her student is released on the 4th of July and is received as the best video of Summer 2000. “Moi…Lolita” makes everybody happy, from camps to clubs, of greedy children of a perky song sang by one of them, to a more mature audience, even understanding the double meanings and the strand of vice that comes from it. The song has such great success that the song stays for 44 weeks in the charts, and seven and a half months in the Top 10! Third best sales of the year 2000, “Moi…Lolita” stays in the 52nd position next year of the most sold singles. Strong from this immediate success, Alizée takes the good old string of the Farmer style promotion, and during the whole summer, she is instructed on her coming schedule. With an embargo on information and absolute discretion, it is necessary to know how to maintain mystery, feed absence and create demand. Her record company only accepts very few interviews and those done are by telephone. Also, one favours the risk free feathers of the adolescent press and television, and less than ten snapshots are distributed on the media.

The singer leaves her isolation on the 8th of September 2000 with the show “Le grand soir”. The channel shows a report filmed on her island, where Alizée is filmed on the beach and in the streets of Ajaccio with her brother. The grin is mischievous, the looks are seductive and as soon as a question is asked about her mentor, the singer learns to say “joker” (GC’s note: French slang for “no comment”) with a hearty laugh… We follow the young Corsican in rehearsals at the school of theatre and follow her shopping. She needs to prepare so quickly for her shows on TV that she hardly has time to prepare for her first CD and the stuff of celebrity life. Her look is perfect, mixing a college student outfit with a mini robe from the fashion designer Yohji Yamamoto, that is quite in style, with a false fur coat. Discreet makeup but very intentional shakes of the hip, sexy winks at the camera, Alizée sings her show as her name scrolls across screens behind her, emphasizing the official spelling. Quite quickly, eight versions of “Moi…Lolita” are proposed to feed the collectors and the remix discos (Editors note: not less than five different remixes… “Lola Extended Remix”, “Hello Helli T’es A Dance Mix”, “Lolidub Remix”, “Illicit Full Vocal Mix” and “Lola Extended Remix Radio Edit”).

Strong from her success with “Moi…Lolita”, Alizée takes the nice old recipes of Farmer style promotion. Embargo on information and absolute discretion.

Rare interventions, multiple sources of support, sparing declarations, all this seems like its happened before, no? The strategy seems to be perfectly burned-in, will Alizée become a mini-Mylène? One week later, she defends her title on “Hit machine” and comes back on the 29th of September on the show that discovered her. She appears more sedate with an azure blue outfit. Under the gaze of Françoise Hardy, Laurent Boyer joins her and gets a few words about her beginning collaboration with the icon Farmer. Nothing transcendental is in her answers, just a single piece of crucial information: the release of a first album in October.

Delicacies and other treats…

Seeing the success of “Moi…Lolita”, Laurent Boutonnat and Mylène Farmer have created a team of faithful people to make the young girl’s creative work in record time. We find Slim Pezin, Mylène’s favourite guitarist on her first three albums and pillar of her show in 1989, the well known bassist of Francis Cabrel, Bernard Paganotti, the drummer Mathieu Rabaté and the singer Ann Calvert. Alizée records in the Guillaume Tell studio under the watch of Didier Lozahic, Dominique Blanc-Francard’s old assistant and engineer of her favourite original soundtracks of Luc Besson’s films. The album, called Gourmandises, owes a lot to Boutonnat’s direction and offers a sampling of up tempo juicy bits (“Moi…Lolita”, “L’alizé”, “Gourmandises”, and the successful “Veni Vidi Vici”) and other synthesizer based ballads in the form of electronic and evanescent marshmallows, fortified with keyboard (“Lui ou toi”), percussions (“A quoi rêve une jeune fille”) or done with an almost speaking voice (“Mon Maquis”). It is filled with references to childrens literature (“Gourmandises”, “Veni Vidi Vici”) and allusions to Gainsbourg. The text of “Lui ou toi” invokes Adjani and his “blue sweater”, Paradis and her “wave of tears”. Alizée plays the chameleon, being at the same time a seductive Lolita, adventurous James Bond Girl, romantic adolescent or a tortured child-woman. Mylène uses her to describe the period of adolescence, a time when childhood seems far away with its group of illusions. “A quoi bon/Les vies chiffons/Les mots d’amour/Qui sont trop courts”, Alizée asks, in « Parler tout bas ». It is a time of questioning, (« A quoi rêve une jeune fille »), of awakenings (« Gourmandises »), of capricious humors (« Abracadabra », “L’alizé”), and of impossible choices.

Mylène Farmer wins the bet of instilling personality into this painting while taking care to highlight Alizée’s group of unique characteristics.


This confusion of feelings, the writer translates it into a cacophony of styles and people (“Lui ou toi”), even going as far as writing grammatically incorrect sentences (“S’il te plait/Arrêtez”) (GC’s note: te (you) and Arrêtez (stop, subjunctive) should agree in number, but they do not, this is what the author means by grammatically incorrect) .

Outside of the sensual sounds and the effective gimmicks, Mylène Farmer wins the bet of instilling personality into this painting while taking care to highlight Alizée’s group of unique characteristics. As evidence, she could neither allow herself to pass by a song titled “L’alizé” nor advertise her Corsican origins (“Mon maquis”, “Veni Vidi Vici”). “Et si ça se corse/Elle se décorsette/Une île de beauté » she makes her sing in « JBG ». The discretion of her goddaughter also inspires two pieces talking about the secret garden of each little girl. The bed of a child becomes a secret and trespass-free territory, a place of giving the ultimate secret to “The Inanimate World” (“Parler tout bas”) and the siblings hideout (“Mon maquis”). Still, Mylène does a portrait of a young girl who is demystified, who takes the role of “un zeste de féminité/Sur un corps-puce de gamine” (“Veni, Vidi, Vici”), and describes the strong character of her student by saying that under her timid character, mademoiselle always gets what she wants (“Canon, car on/Doit tout lui donner/Le bon dieu sans resister, car…” in “JBG”). “Ce qu’elle veut, A-LIZEE l’a toujours” she writes in “L’alizé”.

Sweet breezes are made of this…

17 november 2000. The first edition of “M6 Awards”, new ceremony occurring with the “NRJ Music Awards”, happens in the Zenith of Lille. Alizée had only published one single, but the channel did not want to wait for the imminent release of her album, it wants to bet on the excitement and is eager to put the plough on the cows (GC’s note: get the ball rolling, get stuff working), by proposing to put her on the TV viewers vote beside Pit Bacardi, Mystik, Damien Saez, Superfunk and Yannick. The public awards her the prize of “Best discovery of the year”, which is given to her by Tina Arena. Very moved, she thanks her parents, her audience, her record company and her producers under the applause of Olivier Kahn, her manager. During the ceremony, Mylène Farmer is also awarded for her clip “Optimistique-moi”. She thanks the audience while saying a few words to Barbara, and congratulates Alizée, all the while crying at the podium.

After this awards ceremony, Gourmandises is finally released. “L’alizé” is chosen as the new single, published on the 28th of November 2000, and accompanied by the usual dose of remixes, like the good doctor Mylène Farmer ordered. To create a bit more agreeable image, this song shows a happy Alizée, ready to experience her first feelings of love during the rough times of adolescence (“Moi, j’suis comme le vent/L’esprit à mille à l’heure/Je juge sans doute trop vite/C’est ok, tant pis”). Whether it be the CD insert of Gourmandises or the video of “L’alizé”, we are going towards the little girl! Wahoo! The singer films this second clip in Belgium, under the direction of Pierre Stine and his chief operator, Aldo Piscina. In the presence of Dnaiel Davoudian, a celebrated glassblower and sculptor of bars of soap, Alizée evolves like in a dream in a carefully done pastel painting. She is carefree, she has fun, she flies and she does some acrobat moves. The filming turned out to be quite grueling. A story that reminds us that Alizée is above all a singer, the musicians are filmed, using their respective instruments on elevated platforms. The pop song goes to 11th place in the charts, but has first place for two consecutive weeks in January 2001.

The singer does her best and presents her single on “Hit Machine” on the 2nd of December with the same musicians as those in the clip, who unfortunately had not yet learned how to mime the playback recording! On the 9th of December, she sings in the Telethon and next tours several TV shows for kids like “Les petits princes” (The little princes) and “Les petits anges de Noël” (The little angels of Christmas), and does nights of pop taking advantage of the success of the year. Therefore, Alizée finishes the year 2000 on “Le grand hit” of M6, on the 28th of December. During that week, she succeeded in placing her two songs on the first and the 3rd place of the most sold singles. Only “Les rois du monde” (The kings of the world) of the musical Romeo and Juliet slid in between the two successful songs. Despite the late late release, the album Gourmandises is raised to the 51st place among the most sold albums in 2000 and starts to seduce the French speaking world (Editor’s note: “Moi…Lolita”, sixth most sold single in Belgium in 2000).

Veni, vedi, vici

The year 2001 starts with a very good outlook. Alizée continues to promote her album, notably in “Video gag”. A week later, on the 20th of January 2001, she is in Cannes for the “NRJ Music Awards” where she sings in lip-sync “L’alizé” and wins the prize for the best internet site, and the more coveted award of best Francophone discovery, awarded by Patrick Bruel. Nominated to “Victoires de la musique”, she is shunned by the Academy, who prefers Isabelle Boulay on the 17th of February 2001, probably because of the difficult relationship between the association and Mylène Farmer. However, she gets another form of award because she is invited to participate on the Enfoirés show, recorded this year in Lyon. Alizée becomes the narrator of a medley constructed from the “Rock collection” of Voulzy and sings for the first time on stage, live and with an audience blown away by her new star status. The press follows the phenomenon very closely and the singer poses with Henri Salvador on the cover of Paris Match for a strange multi-generational page between the old bloke and the wise little girl. In March, Alizée is called to Holland, where the original version of “Moi…Lolita” sees great success. On the 30th of April, she participates in an exceptional open air concert, before 40 000 people in Amsterdam, organized by The Music Factory as one of the events celebrating the birthday of the Queen of Holland.

While Europe is discovering the French Lolita, Alizée continues her journey by releasing the ballad “Parler tout bas”, broadcasted on the radio since March. She sings about her difficulty growing up and confronting what she imagines to be the violence of the adult world: “Les grands ont des griffes/Comme des bouts de ciment/Comment leur dire/Quand on a que seize ans/Le lit qu’on défait, n’a plus/Le gout du zan(…)/Les grands ont des rires/Qui vous gifflent/En passant ». To protect herself from the unknown, she closes herself up in her imagination, preferring to receive love from her toy bears rather than crashing into real love: “Parler tout bas/Trouver les mots qu’il faut/Parler de tout, parler de moi/Pour trouver le repos”. Some snapshots from Philippe Bouley appear and the clip is signed Laurent Boutonnat, assisted by Jean-Marie Dreujou, the chief operator who was his second hand man for the clips of Nathalie Cardone, picks up with a more obscure tone. Alizée is stretched out on her bed, her house is in ruin. Rain is falling down on her face and her toys are broken. Her dolls become alive and try to escape with her. Alizée decides to bury her bear – and to symbolically quit the world of childhood – under the eyes of her dolls, perched on the branches of a tree. Liberated from all that troubles her, she can finally live a life with her lover, rejected without shame in the video of “Moi…Lolita”.

“Parler tout bas” takes an honourable path in the charts for more than twenty weeks, attaining in June, 12th place in the Top single. On TV, Alizée presents herself in a laid back way and sings while sitting down on a chair, notably in two editions of “Tapis Rouge” (Red carpet) (Editor’s note: including one dedicated on the 4th of July 2001 to Enfants de la Terre (Children of the Earth), the association of Yannick Noah). She does shows on “Hit machine” in April, in “Drôle de petits champions” (Funny little champions) in May, and on June 1st 2001, she participates on the famous “Stars à domicile” (Stars in your house) filling little Julia with joy from the Eure-et-Loir. For the occasion, she barges in on the little girl’s birthday party, while singing “Moi…Lolita”, her show, that was awarded a few months earlier, on the 31st of May, with the SACEM Vincent Scotto prize. Loyal to Laurent Boyer, she goes on the show “Bébé stars” (Baby stars) in the beginning of summer and stops on the 22nd of July 2001 by an appearance on the show “Génies en herbe” (Geniuses in the grass).