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.
1984–2000: Early life and career beginnings
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.
2000–2002: Gourmandises, Moi... Lolita, L'Alizé, and international success
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.
2003–2004: Mes courants électriques and En Concert
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.