(Paris) The artist who is now called Christine and the Queens, now gendered in the masculine, returns with a new album where Madonna puts her voice, served by a landmark show on the roads.
Forget the confusing alias Redcar chosen in mid-November 2022 for the release of a disc, The adorable stars, which went a little unnoticed. And which was only the prologue in French of a sequel in English, Paranoïa, angels, true love, more attractive and which comes out this Friday.
The adorable stars had been preceded by two concerts at the Cirque d’Hiver in Paris, setting a visceral and overloaded performance, intended for the ultimate fans.
As a prelude to Paranoïa, angels, true love, the pop singer performed at the Californian Coachella festival in April and especially at the French Art Rock festival in May, unveiling five new titles.
Those who attended were amazed. “It was super-impressive, a total show, we went beyond a concert”, described for AFP Alice Boinet, programmer of Art Rock. This festival is accustomed to this kind of success since Phoenix, a French group which, like Christine and the Queens, finds a good echo internationally, revealed its scenography for its latest opus Alpha Zulu last year.
“On stage, for Christine and the Queens, there is a monumental statue, Anglo-Saxon musicians and him, in the middle, very theatrical, with a vocal power that we had perhaps a little forgotten and which stuck the public,” continues Alice Boinet.
The thirty-year-old artist will roam the European stages, the United Kingdom, go back to North America, without forgetting of course a few passages in France to carry this album, of 20 titles in its long version, 9 in the short.
Of course, the songs with Madonna – Angels crying in my bed, I met an angel and Lick the light out – will be talked about.
The megastar, who will begin a world tour this summer to celebrate his 40-year career, speaks there in a spectral voice. Which fits perfectly with the themes of spiritual journey after bereavement – Christine and the Queens lost her mother in recent years – and love quest that run through the record.
The French artist, revealed by the album Chaleur humaine (2014), explains in his notes of intent sent to the interpreter of Vogue “parts to read instead of choruses to sing, in order to speak to the actress who is in it.”
And to salute “this iconic voice, so emblematic, of Madonna, which speaks with all the facets (inscribed) in our consciousness, taking on multiple forms and roles, from the mother figure to the dominatrix”.
Madonna, a big fan of the Frenchman, even invited him in 2015 to join her on stage at Bercy (Accor Arena) in Paris, slapping his buttocks for a video sequence that went viral.
But how do you convince the Material girl singer to take part in a very conceptual project on paper? “It happened on a phone call, she said to me: ‘You’re crazy, I’ll do it'”, says Christine and the Queens in the French magazine Les Inrockuptibles.
We must not stop at the songs where Madonna appears, nor at the esoteric interview passages of Christine and the Queens. Who thus recounts in Les Inrockuptibles a complex discussion with the DJs of a French radio station. They assure that they can “judge the effectiveness of a piece in the first ten seconds”, he speaks to them of a “shamanic journey”…
The album, which the Frenchman co-produced with Mike Dean (collaborator of Jay-Z, The Weeknd or Beyoncé), includes beautiful moments like the ballad I feel like an angel. The tracks Big Eye and Tears can be sof benefit from a Portishead rhythm (one of the leading British groups of trip-hop). And Marvin descending promises chills on stage.
