Background and career
Alizée Lyonnet (née Jacotey; born 21 August 1984), known mononymously as Alizée, is a French singer and dancer. She is one of the best-selling French female artists of the 21st century, and the musician with the most exports out of France. Her debut single "Moi... Lolita", is one of the hit songs of the 2000s in France, as well as in Europe and Asia. She has released 6 studio albums today. Born and raised in Ajaccio, Corsica, Alizée's first public appearance was her winning performance in the talent show Graines de star in 1999. While collaborating with Mylène Farmer and Laurent Boutonnat, she followed it with a series of albums that attained popularity by pushing the boundaries of lyrical content in mainstream popular music and imagery in her music videos, which became a fixture on NRJ, MTV, Virgin Radio, Europe 1, among others. Throughout her career, many of her songs have been in top 25 hit lists on the record charts, including "Moi... Lolita", "L'Alizé", "J'en ai marre!", "Gourmandises", "Mademoiselle Juliette", her cover version of "La Isla Bonita", "Parler Tout Bas", "Les collines (Never Leave You)" and "À cause de l'automne". Alizée entered the music business in 2000. Her first album was Gourmandises, which received a Platinum certification within three months of release. It was a success both in France and abroad, earning Alizée the distinction of being the highest-selling female French singer in 2001. The album featured her most successful single, "Moi... Lolita", which reached number one in several countries in Europe and East Asia. It became a rare example of a foreign-language song to chart highly in the UK Singles Chart, peaking at number 9. It was followed by her second studio album, Mes courants électriques, which was released in 2003, focusing on the East Asian market. Alizée returned home for touring at En concert Tour, performing in 43 concerts throughout France, Belgium and Switzerland in 2003 and 2004. After a three years hiatus, Alizée released her third studio album, Psychédélices, in 2007, which achieved some success in Latin America and Eastern Europe, performing in these regions on the Psychédélices Tour in 2008. For her fourth album, 2010's Une enfant du siècle, she collaborated with the independent Parisian scene, including Para One and Adán Jodorowsky, and performed in concerts through France and Eastern Europe. In the next years, she recorded several collaborations, including Alain Chamfort's "Elle & lui" and Olly Murs's "Dear Darlin'". She released her fifth studio album 5 in 2013, passing through a divorce process and musical maturity, earning praise for her artistic evolution. She also participated in and won the fourth season of the TV dance contest Danse avec les stars. Her sixth album, Blonde, was released in 2014, collaborating with Pascal Obispo and Zazie and featuring more mainstream pop sounds. It received mixed reviews and was not successful in sales.
Known to all her friends by her nickname "Lili", Alizée began dancing early in life, and by the age of four was already proficient. During 1988–2000, she studied in what was then called Ecole de danse Monique Mufraggi, a famous dance and theatre school in Ajaccio. In 1995, aged 11, she won a colouring competition with about 7,000 entrants organised by the French airline Air Outre Mer. Her design was used to paint the exterior of one of their airliners, subsequently named after her, for which Alizée won a vacation trip with her family to the Maldives. In 1999, she appeared on the TV talent show Graines de star, broadcast on Métropole 6. She initially intended to sign up for the programme's dance contest, but that category was reserved for groups only. Alizée therefore joined the singing category instead, performing the song "Waiting for Tonight" by Jennifer Lopez and "Ma Prière" (a single released by Axelle Red in 1997). She went on to win the Meilleure Graine award for most promising young singing star of tomorrow.
Alizée's winning performance was seen by veteran songwriters Mylène Farmer and Laurent Boutonnat, who were looking for a young, fresh voice to partake in their new project. They approached Alizée, and she was selected after studio auditions. The duo arranged her debut with a meticulously orchestrated launch, controlling her image and public appearances. In 2000, they produced her maiden album, Gourmandises ("Delicacies"), which was a great success in France, Belgium, Germany, Mexico, and the United Kingdom. The first single, "Moi... Lolita", resurrected the rich French musical tradition pioneered by Serge Gainsbourg in 1964 with the song "Pauvre Lola", inspired by the celebrated novel Lolita, creating the image which defined Alizée in the early years of her career. She won an M6 award in 2000 and returned with a follow-up album, Mes courants électriques, in 2003. This second album was also quite successful, though less so than her first album. A video album shot during her European concert tour soon followed. "Moi... Lolita" became her most successful to date. It enjoyed success throughout most of Europe and parts of East Asia, reaching number one in several countries. The associated music video portrayed Alizée as an impoverished rustic teen visiting a dance club in the city with her little sister, pursued by a young man who had lent them the bus fare to get there, but whose romantic interest in her she never returned. The song was later used in the UK trailer of the 2006 film, A Good Year, and was a part of the film's soundtrack. The single was from her debut album, Gourmandises, released in 2000. The album, written by Farmer and composed by Boutonnat, sold over 788,000 copies in France – it reached Platinum status in just three months. In 2001, the album was launched internationally and Alizée became the highest-selling female French singer ever. The album went on to sell over two million copies worldwide. Farmer and Boutonnat kept a tight rein how the album was marketed and controlled the image in which Alizée was portrayed. In the meantime, Alizée gave very few interviews, and even when she did, they did not stretch beyond 20 minutes per journalist. Neither did she agree to any photoshoots. Her second single "L'Alizé" (2000), also from the same album, followed soon. It also hit number one in France, and gained some international success. The video of the "sexily alliterative" song (compare its title to "Lola", a variant on "Lolita") shows a miraculously acrobatic (even airborne) Alizée frolicking amidst popping bubbles in front of a pink backdrop, erotically singing about her cautious search for a true love. The video was shot in a studio in Brussels, which had a 25-metre-by-10-metre painted canvas to serve as the background, with real bubbles. This single was followed up with another single from the same album – the title song "Gourmandises". The video, which shows a group of teenage boys and girls on a picnic, was shot in a day. The last single from the album was "Parler tout bas", about coming of age, and was illustrated with a surreal music video. In France, "Parler tout bas" was the third single, then followed by the release of Gourmandises.
In 2003, Alizée returned with her second album Mes courants électriques ("My Electric Currents"). With the release of this album, she changed her image from a "Lolita" to that of a more toned-down teenager. This album was also written by Farmer and Boutonnat and sold 400,000 copies in France. The first single from this album, "J'en ai marre!" (also known as "Mon bain de mousse" in Japan), was released in 2003. The music video for this shows Alizée in a glass cage singing while having water splashed on her. The plexiglass cage, three-by-three meters in dimension, was constructed in a Parisian studio, and the shooting of the video took two days. The other singles from this album were "J'ai pas vingt ans" and "À contre-courant". The video for "J'ai pas vingt ans" ("I'm Not Twenty") resembles the ambience of a concert with Alizée dancing in the midst of several other dancers. "À contre-courant", the last single from the album, was shot in an abandoned coal factory. The albums features English versions of four tracks. The translations are artistic translations rather than literal, attempting to capture the rough feeling and concepts rather than the specific words and expressions. In some cases they are "dumbed down", lacking the clever French wordplays of the originals. Following the release of Mes courants électriques, Alizée went on a countrywide tour of France, along with a performance each in Belgium and Switzerland, during the second half of 2003. The tour started off with a performance on 26 August 2003 in Paris. It concluded with her performance on the prestigious l'Olympia hall in Paris and eve of 17 January 2004 at the Le Zénith concert hall in the same city and had covered major cities including Lyon, Rouen, Lille, Grenoble, and Dijon. A live CD and DVD, Alizée en concert, composed of selected performances from her tour, was launched a year later in the autumn of 2004. The audio CD contained tracks, taken from her two studio albums. The DVD featured video footage of the same performances as on the CD, along with bonus footage of her rehearsals.
In 2005, after the success of her first tour and first live album release, Alizée first disappeared from the limelight, then reappeared in the media as it was revealed she was pregnant. She gave birth to a girl, Annily, on 28 April 2005 (the child she had with Jérémy Chatelain), and put her career on hold. However, the tabloids devoted several articles, for the name Alizée appeared with others, including the false listings of the Clearstream affair. After several rumours of an imminent return, especially in collaboration with the band Indochine, Alizée left Universal Records to sign with RCA (Sony BMG) in August 2007, also revealing that the En concert album and tour were her last collaboration with her mentors. Meanwhile, a compilation of the live album was re-released in early 2007 in Mexico by Universal Music as a CD+DVD release, following the featuring of the songs on local radio stations. With the re-release and renewed interest, the songs climbed up the music charts in the country. The album became a hit, peaking at number four in the International Chart on 28 May 2007, and number eight on the main albums chart. En concert has a Gold certification for shipments over 50,000 copies only in Mexico.
After a three-year hiatus, a time spent out of the media spotlight, Alizée returned in December 2007 with a new album, Psychédélices, the first one to be made without the creative supervision of her former mentor Mylène Farmer. The album, which features 11 tracks, was made available for digital downloads 26 November 2007, with a full release on 3 December 2007 on the RCA label. It includes collaborations with Bertrand Burgalat, Daniel Darc, Oxmo Puccino, Jérémy Chatelain, Michel-Yves Kochmann, and Jean Fauque. The first single from the album was "Mademoiselle Juliette", officially released on 30 September 2007. It was accidentally released early on the Virgin Megastore website on 23 September 2007, but was taken down later citing an error on the part of Virgin Music France. The single was later made available in online music stores as well as on radio stations, and went on to capture the No. 13 spot on the legal music downloads charts. To promote the single, Alizée appeared on the French radio station NRJ on 27 September 2007. The video for the single was released for broadcast on 19 November 2007, though it was made available on MSN France on 16 November 2007. It was released on physical media, both CD and vinyl, on 21 January 2008. Another track from the album, "Fifty-Sixty", was leaked two months before the album was released. Though the song was not mentioned by name, the leak was confirmed in a press release which revealed the title and release schedule of the album. "Fifty-Sixty" later launched as the second single from the album in February 2008. The lyric of "Fifty-Sixty" tells, in personal and metaphorical manner, of a young model under the guidance of Andy Warhol, possibly inspired by real-life story of Edie Sedgwick. The song ends with a reiteration of how she foolishly believed Warhol thought her the most beautiful model of all. Three music videos were released for the single, one for the album version of the song and the other two for two remixes. An Alizée website, Psychedeclips.com, was dedicated to the video series, the first of which was released on 5 May 2008. Coinciding with the new album, a new official website was created, which, despite being announced on 11 September 2007, was kept under wraps until 28 November 2007. The album was also promoted via an official artist profile at MySpace. Advertising and marketing campaigns for the album began 22 November 2007 with ad campaigns on NRJ Radio, TF1-TV, and the web. In March 2008, Alizée visited Mexico for the first time in a short promotional tour. On 5 March, she was supposed to hold the second-ever public autograph session of her career but it was cancelled due to problems with the store's security. She held an improvised press conference to apologise to all her Mexican fans and to explain that it was not her fault. Sony BMG Mexico also released a statement saying it was not Alizée's fault, that it was the store who had problems with the security, and that they did not expect so many people in attendance; fences had been broken and children were in danger. Alizée also promised to make amends by having another autograph session when she returned to the country on the following tour. She also stated that her tour would start on 18 May in Moscow, followed by concerts in Mexico and then France. She also commented that piracy in music has two sides, "one good" and "one bad", saying that sometimes it is good because her music reaches places that she never thought to reach. After the success of Alizée's tour in Mexico, and in an attempt to mitigate the damage caused during her first promotional visit, Alizée announced an autograph session with fans on 26 June 2008 in Mexico City. Over 300 CDs were signed and the record label executives of Sony BMG Mexico presented a Gold certification for shipments over 50,000 copies of Psychédélices – Mexican Tour Edition. A new cover singing in Mexico was Madonna's cover "La Isla Bonita"; it went on to become Alizée's first top-ten on the airplay chart. Following the success of Alizée en concert and Psychédélices in Mexico, Alizée's former music label, Universal Music, released a compilation album titled Tout Alizée. The compilation, which is a Mexico-only release, consists of 15 tracks (with 4 remixes) from her first two studio albums. It is augmented with a bonus DVD featuring some of her music videos. The compilation reached No. 22 on the Mexican Top 100 Albums Chart and No. 3 on the Mexican International Top 20 Albums Chart.
