Christine and the Queens

Christine and the Queens (2014)

Héloïse Letissier (born June 1, 1988 in Nantes ), known under the stage name Christine and the Queens , is a French singer-songwriter and dancer .

biography

The daughter of a teacher couple learned to play the piano at an early age and discovered her love for the stage as a child. She had to give up her dance lessons due to an injury and turned to modern jazz . After studying acting in Lyon and Paris , Letissier went to London in 2010 , where she befriended a group of singing drag queens who persuaded her to sing.

In 2011 Letissier released her first EP Miséricorde as "Christine and the Queens" , which was followed by two more in 2012 and 2013. Nuit 17 à 52 from the third EP of the same name was her first single in the French charts at number 75 in 2014. In 2012 she appeared in the opening act for Lykke Li , The Dø and Woodkid , and in 2013 with Lilly Wood & the Prick . In 2012 Christine and the Queens won the “Découverte du Printemps de Bourges” and “Adami Premières Francos 2012” awards.

In June 2014 her first album Chaleur humaine was released , which reached number 2 in the French charts. The album was released in Germany in early 2015.

At the Victoires de la Musique on February 13, 2015, Christine and the Queens received two awards, in the categories “Best Singer” and “Best Video Clip” for the clip for the song Saint Claude . She was nominated in five categories.

Musical style

Letissier's music mixes the classic French chanson with modern rhythm and blues , enriched with pop and minimalist electro elements. Your texts alternate between English and French . Her appearances are theatrical performance actions.

Letissier include the American rappers Frank Ocean and Kanye West , the Swedish singer Fever Ray , Beyoncé , the chansonnier Daniel Balavoine , Michael Jackson , but also Lou Reed and the 1972 album Ziggy Stardust by David Bowie .

Discography

Studio albums

year	title	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes)							Remarks
year	title	FR	BE ^W	BE ^F	DE	AT	CH	UK	Remarks
2014	Chaleur humaine	FR2 diamond (144 weeks)FR	BE ^W1 (136 weeks) BE ^W	BE ^F5 platinum (119 weeks)BE ^F	-	-	CH7th platinum (58 weeks)CH	UK2 gold (45 weeks)UK	First published: June 2nd, 2014 Sales: +650,000
2018	Chris	FR2 gold (42 weeks)FR	BE ^W1 (25 weeks) BE ^W	BE ^F5 (23 weeks) BE ^F	DE36 (1 week) DE	AT38 (1 week) AT	CH5 (10 weeks) CH	UK3 silver (13 weeks)UK	First published: September 21, 2018 Sales: + 110,000

EPs

year	title	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes)							Remarks
year	title	FR	BE ^W	BE ^F	DE	AT	CH	UK	Remarks
2013	Nuit 17 to 52	FR130 (2 weeks) FR	BE ^W85 (1 week) BE ^W	-	-	-	-	-	First published: May 30, 2013
2020	La vita nuova	FR27 (... weeks) FR	BE ^W28 (... weeks) BE ^W	BE ^F58 (... weeks) BE ^F	-	-	CH32 (1 week) CH	UK37 (2 weeks) UK	First published: February 28, 2020

More EPs

2011: Miséricorde
2012: Mac Abbey
2015: iTunes Session
2015: Saint-Claude EP (US)
2015: intranquality

Singles

year	Title album	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, album , rankings, weeks, awards, notes)					Remarks
year	Title album	FR	BE ^W	BE ^F	CH	UK	Remarks
2013	Nuit 17 to 52 Nuit 17 to 52	FR75 (6 weeks) FR	-	-	-	-	First published: June 3, 2013
2014	Saint Claude Chaleur humaine	FR4 (87 weeks) FR	BE ^W8 (26 weeks) BE ^W	-	CH60 (1 week) CH	-	First published: April 14, 2014
2014	Christine Chaleur humaine	FR3 (91 weeks) FR	BE ^W1 (44 weeks) BE ^W	BE ^F1 × 2 Double platinum (35 weeks)BE ^F	CH32 gold (27 weeks)CH	-	First published: October 13, 2014 Sales: +95,000
2015	Tilted Chaleur humaine	-	-	-	-	UK20th platinum (21 weeks)UK	First published: March 3rd, 2015 Sales: + 600,000
	Paradis perdu Chaleur humaine	FR19 (73 weeks) FR	BE ^W39 (2 weeks) BE ^W	-	-	-	First published: June 2015
	No Harm Is Done Chaleur humaine	FR118 (3 weeks) FR	-	-	-	-	First published: September 8th, 2015 feat. Tunji Ige
	Jonathan Chaleur humaine	FR120 (3 weeks) FR	-	-	-	-	First release: October 8, 2015 feat. Perfume Genius
2016	Here single track	FR52 (3 weeks) FR	-	-	-	-	First published: February 19, 2016 feat. Booba
2018	Damn, dis-moi / Girlfriend Chris	FR61 gold (19 weeks)FR	BE ^W7 (18 weeks) BE ^W	BE ^F21 (10 weeks) BE ^F	-	UK85 (2 weeks) UK	First published: May 17, 2018 Sales: + 100,000; feat. Dâm funk
	5 dols / 5 dollars Chris	-	BE ^W28 (9 weeks) BE ^W	-	-	-	First published: August 16, 2018
	La marcheuse / The Walker Chris	FR112 (3 weeks) FR	-	-	-	-	First published: August 23, 2018
2019	Gone Charli	-	-	-	-	UK58 (2 weeks) UK	First published: July 17th, 2019 with Charli XCX
The following songs did not appear as single, but were made available for download and streaming through the album and were thus able to achieve a placement:
2015	Chaleur humaine Chaleur humaine	FR186 (1 week) FR	-	-	-	-	Chart entry: February 21, 2015
	Intranquility Intranquility	FR54 (3 weeks) FR	-	-	-	-	Chart entry: June 20, 2015
	Amazoniaque intranquility	FR178 (1 week) FR	-	-	-	-	Chart entry: November 14, 2015
	Safe and Holy Intranquility	FR188 (1 week) FR	-	-	-	-	Chart entry: November 14, 2015

more publishments

2013: The Loving Cup
2015: Narcissus is Back
2018: Doesn't Matter / Doesn't Matter (Voleur de Soleil)
2019: Comme si / Comme si on s'aimait
2020: People, I've Been Sad

Chart placements as a guest musician

year	Title album	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, album , rankings, weeks, awards, notes)					Remarks
year	Title album	FR	BE ^W	BE ^F	CH	UK	Remarks
2019	Minuit 13 single track	FR49 (2 weeks) FR	-	-	-	-	First published: March 1st, 2019 Hamza feat. Christine and the Queens & Oxmo Puccino

Awards for music sales

Golden record

Netherlands Netherlands
- 2015: for the single Christine

Note: Awards in countries from the chart tables or chart boxes can be found in these.

Country / Region	silver	gold	platinum	diamond	Sales	swell
Awards for music sales (country / region, awards, sales, sources)
Belgium (BEA)	0! S.-	0! G-	3 × platinum3	0! D.-	90,000	ultratop.be
France (SNEP)	0! S.-	2 × gold2	0! P-	diamond1	650,000	snepmusique.com
Netherlands (NVPI)	0! S.-	gold1	0! P-	0! D.-	20,000	nvpi.nl
Switzerland (IFPI)	0! S.-	gold1	platinum1	0! D.-	45,000	hitparade.ch
United Kingdom (BPI)	silver1	gold1	platinum1	0! D.-	760,000	bpi.co.uk
All in all	silver1	5 × gold5	5 × platinum5	diamond1

Web links

Commons : Héloïse Letissier - collection of images

Christine and the Queens: Official website (English).
Klara Fröhlich: Pop by Christine and the Queens: Gender-Bender with Bionic Boogie. In: taz.de . October 11, 2018.
Reggie Ugwu: Gender Is a Construct. Christine and the Queens Built a Bulldozer. In: The New York Times . September 12, 2018 (English).
Chart sources: France; Belgium: Wallonia, Flanders; Germany; Austria; Switzerland; UK.

Individual evidence

↑ Vanessa Thorpe: How London's drag queens gave French star freedom to sing. In: The Observer . June 7, 2014, accessed March 14, 2020.
^ ^A ^b Philippe Brochen: Portrait: Christine and the Queens, la vie scène. In: Liberation . May 29, 2014, accessed March 14, 2020 (French).
↑ ^a ^b Chart source: Discography Christine And The Queens. In: LesCharts.com. France, accessed March 14, 2020.
^ Prize announcement: Prix Découvertes, et le gagnant est. In: Printemps de Bourges. April 2012, accessed on March 14, 2020 (French).
↑ Lena Bopp: The flowers withered, the lover cold. In: FAZ.net . February 21, 2015, accessed March 14, 2020.
^ Announcement: Aux Victoires de la musique, une photo de famille de la chanson française. In: Le Monde . February 14, 2015, accessed on March 14, 2020 (French).
↑ Klara Fröhlich: The queen of "strange pop". In: Mittelbayerische Zeitung . August 12, 2014, accessed March 14, 2020.

personal data
SURNAME	Christine and the Queens
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Letissier, Héloïse (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	French singer-songwriter
DATE OF BIRTH	June 1, 1988
PLACE OF BIRTH	Nantes , France

[thorpe-1] Vanessa Thorpe: How London's drag queens gave French star freedom to sing. In: The Observer . June 7, 2014, accessed March 14, 2020.

[brochen-2] A ^b Philippe Brochen: Portrait: Christine and the Queens, la vie scène. In: Liberation . May 29, 2014, accessed March 14, 2020 (French).

[charts-3] Chart source: Discography Christine And The Queens. In: LesCharts.com. France, accessed March 14, 2020.

[printemps-4] Prize announcement: Prix Découvertes, et le gagnant est. In: Printemps de Bourges. April 2012, accessed on March 14, 2020 (French).

[5] Lena Bopp: The flowers withered, the lover cold. In: FAZ.net . February 21, 2015, accessed March 14, 2020.

[6] Announcement: Aux Victoires de la musique, une photo de famille de la chanson française. In: Le Monde . February 14, 2015, accessed on March 14, 2020 (French).

[froehlich-7] Klara Fröhlich: The queen of "strange pop". In: Mittelbayerische Zeitung . August 12, 2014, accessed March 14, 2020.