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Mylène Farmer’s Point de suture
New album followed by a mega tour
Paris
25/08/2008 -
In the run-up to the release of Point de suture, Parisian journalists experienced fretful days and sleepless nights trying to generate well-informed copy about Mademoiselle Farmer. Repeated calls to the pop diva’s HQ revealed that last week the singer’s manager was still on holiday and her record label, Polydor, had no new information to release to the press. Committed Farmer fans - who are legion in France - have been turning to the Internet as an alternative source of news. Five days before the actual "physical" release of Point de suture in record stores, the seventh studio album of Mylène’s career was already being sold on three major legal download platforms as well as the SFR mobile phone network.
Prior to this virtual extravaganza, however, Point de suture had been shrouded in the strictest secrecy. Listening extracts had been limited to a few tantalising seconds while pictures of the official album cover were circulated, but only in low definition. In short, Mylène Farmer fans - still one of the most loyal and closely-knit fan bases to follow a French music star -had nothing much to get their collective teeth into. This had not stopped Mylène’s fan club from turning out ‘en masse’ at the end of March 2008 when 120,000 tickets went on sale for two mega shows at the Stade de France (scheduled for 11 and 12 September 2009). The first date sold out within two hours and the second in not much longer, leaving many fans distraught at having failed to gain a place to see their idol’s stadium performance. Luckily, spring 2009 tour dates were later announced with some twenty concerts at the Zéniths (and tickets are still available for these).
Meanwhile, Mylène’s P.R. people have been keeping the singer’s media appearances to a frustrating minimum. One single interview was published this week in the gay magazine Têtu, accompanied by some provocatively androgynous shots of Mylène posing by a mirror with a sleek boy’s haircut, a razor poised over one of her cheeks copiously covered in shaving foam. The article was entitled "Mylène Farmer : les gays et moi." (Mylène Farmer, the gay community and me). Apart from this, the singer’s P.R. company say she may give a couple more interviews to the press, but certainly not more. Fans, it seems, have been turning their attention to the Internet instead, flooding chatrooms and fan sites with various interpretations and decipherings of song lyrics on Point de suture. The Internet police have also been busy deleting songs from Mylène’s new album from video and music sharing sites.
Three and a half years after Mylène’s last album, Avant que l’ombre (which the singer promoted via a series of memorable concerts at Bercy stadium, in Paris) it looks as if the well-oiled Farmer machine is back on track, assuring its routine marketing rituals. And yet, Mylène - like all other artists committed to assuring their careers in the long term - is constantly forced to adapt to the rapidly-changing landscape of the record industry. And, on close inspection, the singer’s seventh album, Point de suture, appears to have been tailor-made for the live circuit, reflecting her ambition to put on a truly marathon tour (for which some 300,000 tickets will be put on sale).
The demise of risqué Mylène?
Laurent Boutonnat, Mylène’s loyal Pygmalion and songwriting partner, has not strayed far from his natural musical penchants when it comes to the composition and production on Point de suture . Mylène’s distinctly unique, yet strangely familiar vocals are set against a background of powerful electro beats. And the ten songs on the album give France’s quirkiest pop diva the chance to dip into many of her pet themes - namely sex, purity, love’s outer extremes and the nature of solitude. Meanwhile, after indulging in the most spectacular series of alliterations known to pop on the chorus of Dégénération (Coma t’es sexe, t’es Styx, extatique / Coma t’es sexe, t’es Styx, test, test statique / Coma t’es sexe, t’es Styx, esthétique), Ms. Farmer segues into her usual mix of collective mantras (C’est dans l’air) and confessionals (Je m’ennuie, Si j’avais au moins).
The sinister-looking aesthetics on the album cover of Point de suture (literally ‘stitch’) feature a dismembered doll effigy of Mylène sprawled amidst a collection of old-fashioned surgical instruments. This may give fans the impression they are in for some seriously dark and disturbing listening. But Point de suture is actually infused with vibrant pop energy and includes a number of upbeat tracks such as Réveiller le monde, the most explicitly "political" song of Mylène’s career to date. Discerning fans may also note that in the sexy fantasy video clip to Dégénération, Mylène’s soldiers are dressed in fashionable military garb which bears an uncanny resemblance to that once worn by the Soviet Army.
At the end of the day, music fans should not expect too much audacity, provocation or musical innovation from the usually risqué Ms. Farmer. Indeed, this time round, the singer’s fan base might just regret that their pop idol’s new album sounds a little too conservative, a little too mainstream, a little too routine. It is clear that the greatest challenge facing the flame-haired songstress right now is packing out the stadiums on her upcoming tour. The days of Mylène’s daring stances behind the studio mike may well be behind her now.
Tour dates across France from 2 May 2009. 11 & 12 September at the Stade de France, Paris (already sold out).
Bertrand Lavaine
Translation : Julie Street
05/01/2001 -
