Mylène Farmer
Mylène Farmer ; actually Mylène Jeanne Gautier (born September 12, 1961 in Pierrefonds , Montréal ), is a French pop singer and actress born in Canada . Her stage name pays homage to Frances Farmer . She is a successful interpreter in France, Belgium, Luxembourg and French-speaking Switzerland, as well as in Russia and the Eastern European countries. In the German-speaking world, the cover versions of her songs Libertine and Désenchantée by Kate Ryan and the singer Alizée , for whom she wrote lyrics, are now better known than the originals by Farmer. With around 25 million records sold, Farmer is one of the most successful French music artists worldwide.
Life
Mylène Farmer has an older sister and two brothers, only one of whom is still alive. Your parents are French. She spent the first eight years of her childhood in Canada because her father worked there as an engineer on a large dam ( Manicouagan reservoir ). She hardly speaks about this time and explains that she has few memories of it. Returning to France , especially getting used to the hectic capital Paris , was difficult for her. In addition to the complicated relationship with her parents, especially her father, she suffered from a lack of acceptance and self-confidence. Mylène Farmer's great interest in cemeteries and the inner proximity to remote places stem from the time she spent with her grandmother. As a twelve-year-old, she received access to the École de Saumur , a riding school near Paris, where she was also supposed to train as a primary school teacher. At the age of 17 she left this school in order to do the Abitur, which she dropped out after a few days in favor of acting classes. Mylène Farmer now increasingly came into conflict and quarrel with the people around her at the time. To earn money, she sells shoes on the side, worked as an advertising model and doctor's assistant. During this time she got to know Laurent Boutonnat through a casting , with whom she still works today. He writes the music for her songs while she is mostly responsible for the lyrics, and has also directed some of her music videos.
Artistic creation
particularities
What is unusual in the music business is that Farmer rarely appears in the media or at public events. There is also no official or permanent website. The production and record companies will temporarily set up a website for marketing and promotional purposes. Her literarily sophisticated song lyrics and feature film-like music videos have contributed to her popularity. Your lavishly produced concerts do your part.
As a result, the stage set-ups for their “Avant Que L'Ombre” tour in January 2006 (13 appearances) could only be attached in Paris at the Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy . The show included u. a. a water effect system that created a curtain of water, an additional center stage, a lifting bridge and a crane device on the hall ceiling, which Mylène Farmer initially lowered from the ceiling in a glass coffin and later drew her over the audience in an oversized candlestick. Transporting it and re-erecting it in another hall was logistically impossible due to the size and complexity of the entire stage. Even at the concerts in June 2019, the structure was so complex that it was only performed in one place, but again several times.
Own work
Farmer made her first appearance in the media in a commercial for the detergent “CHAT machine”, in which she only spoke two words: “Chat alors!” (A play on words, the actual French expression is: “Ça alors!” - Ger. : Well something! Or: Oh, you green nine! ) The advertising contributed to the amusement, but not to the publicity of her name. Only after her debut with the song Maman a tort (1984) came the big breakthrough with the title Libertine and her first album Cendres de lune (1986). From 1986 to 1991 she ranked success after success, especially with Sans contrefaçon , Pourvu qu'elles soient douces (album Ainsi soit-je… , 1988) and Désenchantée (album L'autre… , 1991). Her second record, the 1988 long-player Ainsi soit-je ... , reached number 1 on the French album charts and diamond status with 1.8 million copies sold. The three following albums each found more than a million buyers. The cinema production Giorgino (1994), in which Farmer played the lead role alongside Jeff Dahlgren , flopped.
In 1995 she released the album Anamorphosée with more rocky sounds produced by electronic musical instruments . In 1999 she returned to the musical mood of her first albums with Innamoramento . In 2002 Les Mots was released , their first best-of album, which contained a single of the same name, recorded with Seal . In 1992 and 2003 she released albums with dance remixes of her most famous tracks. In February 2005 the single Fuck Them All was released , which found numerous buyers, followed by the album Avant que l'ombre ... , which sold 300,000 times within two weeks. Then she began a series of 13 concerts for the album, in which she was limited to Bercy in the southeast of Paris as the only venue, as it would have been logistically almost impossible to transport the elaborate stage construction. The live DVD of these concerts became one of the most successful DVDs in France.
As indicated by the choice of her stage name, which pays homage to the American film actress Frances Farmer , who was abused in psychiatric hospitals , Mylène Farmer's songs consistently address serious, personal themes such as depression, death, grief, religion, love, sex or violence . As one of the first women in the pop business, she addressed problems of sexual identity back in the 1980s ( sans contrefaçon… je suis un garçon - in German svw .: no fake… I'm a boy! ), Which also made her an icon of lesbians - and became the gay movement .
The singer's music videos are particularly carefully produced and loaded with great symbolism. The clips of Libertine and Pourvu qu'elles soient douces , both produced by Laurent Boutonnat, are set at the time of the Seven Years' War . The clips from L'âme-stram-gram and California deal with a doppelganger theme. Some television stations censored certain clips with "too explicit" content or broadcast them in edited versions or not at all. This is the case with Beyond my control , a clip that contains an erotic and violent love scene in which you can see the singer literally attacking her lover. In the clip for Je te rends ton amour you can see the singer rolling around in a puddle of blood in a ruined church, completely naked. This clip was broadcast uncensored by arte in the compilation “The 7 Video Sins” 2006 in the German-speaking area.
Writers such as Amélie Nothomb , Edgar Allan Poe , Oscar Wilde and Francesco Alberoni are considered sources of inspiration for farmers .
In the German single charts, their titles achieved the following top positions:
- 1990: Sans contrefaçon (46th place)
- 1991: Désenchantée (46th place)
- 1992: Je t'aime mélancolie (70th place)
In September 2006, Mylène Farmer recorded the single Slipping Away (Crier la vie) together with the American artist Moby , which was also released in Germany in January 2007, but repeatedly fell far behind its success in France at number 63.
On August 20, the seventh studio album Point de Suture was released in digital version, the CD followed a few days later on August 25. The first electronic single Dégénération was released on June 19, 2008. The album reached number 1 in the French download and album charts in the first week and had the third best start of an album in France in 2008.
In the summer of 2009 there was a major European tour with performances in France, Russia, Switzerland and Belgium, which for the first time also included open-air stadium concerts with up to 90,000 spectators ( Stade de France ), of which in March and April 2008 the Both performances at the Stade de France in Paris were sold out after two hours each. The online ticket system collapsed after just a few minutes at the start of advance ticket sales. The second concert at the Stade de France took place on Mylène Farmer's 48th birthday, on Saturday, September 12th, 2009. The last concert of this tour took place a week later on September 19, 2009 in Brussels ( Belgium ) at the Stade du roi Baudouin.
On December 6, 2010 the album Bleu Noir was released , which was not produced in collaboration with Laurent Boutonnat for the first time in Mylène Farmer's career.
The new album Monkey Me was composed by Mylène Farmer and Laurent Boutonnat and was released on December 3, 2012. The tour was called Timeless 2013 and began on September 7, 2013 with one of ten concerts in Paris at the Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy . This was followed by further hall concerts in France, Switzerland, Belarus, Russia and Belgium.
On August 28, 2015, Farmer released the duet Stolen Car with the British musician Sting . The album Interstellaires was released on November 6, 2015 .
The album Désobéissance was released on September 28, 2018 . Between June 7 and 22, 2019, a total of nine concerts took place in Paris in the Paris La Défense Arena . As in 2006, Paris was the only venue on the entire tour.
Alizée
In 2000, Farmer and Boutonnat wrote and produced the song Moi… Lolita . The two believed that this song would be better suited to a young singer, so they did a casting. The then 15-year-old Corsican Alizée fit the concept best, Moi ... Lolita was produced and published with her. Due to the great European success of the single, Farmer and Boutonnat recorded the album Gourmandises with Alizée , which also reached high chart positions. The successor Mes courants électriques , published in 2003, was also created under the aegis of Mylène Farmer and her partner.
Discography
Studio albums
| year | title |
Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes) |
Remarks | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 FR
|
 BE W
|
 DE
|
 CH
|
|||
| 1986 | Cendres de lune |
FR39 (14 weeks) FR |
BE W71 (2 weeks) BE W |
- | - |
Sales: 700,000
First published: April 1986 the chart placement in Belgium is from 2019 |
| 1988 | Ainsi soit je ... |
FR1  (104 weeks)FR |
BE W59  (2 weeks)BE W |
DE47 (9 weeks) DE |
CH- |
Sales: 1,800,000
First published: April 1988 Chart placement in Belgium is from 2019 |
| 1991 | L'autre ... |
FR1 (73 weeks)FR |
BE W58 (1 week) BE W |
DE55 (6 weeks) DE |
CH27 (9 weeks)CH |
Sales: 2,200,000
First release: April 8, 1991 in Belgium a special vinyl edition hit the charts in 2019 |
| 1995 | Anamorphosis |
FR1 (80 weeks)FR |
BE W2  (71 weeks)BE W |
- |
CH25th (6 weeks)CH |
Sales: 1,425,000
First published: Oct 17, 1995 |
| 1999 | Innamoramento |
FR2 (97 weeks)FR |
BE W2 (66 weeks)BE W |
- |
CH- |
Sales: 1,500,000
First published: April 7, 1999 |
| 2005 | Avant que l'ombre ... |
FR1 (80 weeks)FR |
BE W1 (58 weeks)BE W |
- |
CH2 (11 weeks) CH |
Sales: 800,000
First published: April 4, 2005 |
| 2008 | Point de Suture |
FR1 × 3
(66 weeks)FR |
BE W1 (34 weeks)BE W |
- |
CH2 (10 weeks)CH |
Sales: 800,000
First published: Aug 20, 2008 |
| 2010 | Bleu Noir |
FR1 (45 weeks)FR |
BE W1 (43 weeks)BE W |
- |
CH7th (12 weeks)CH |
Sales: 800,000
First published: December 6, 2010 |
| 2012 | Monkey me |
FR1 × 3
(50 weeks)FR |
BE W1 (54 weeks)BE W |
- |
CH3 (11 weeks) CH |
Sales: 600,000
First published: December 3, 2012 |
| 2015 | Interstellaires |
FR1 × 3
(46 weeks)FR |
BE W1 (57 weeks)BE W |
DE79 (1 week) DE |
CH3 (10 weeks) CH |
Sales: 500,000
First published: Nov 6, 2015 |
| 2018 | Désobéissance |
FR1 × 2
(90 weeks)FR |
BE W1 (42 weeks) BE W |
- |
CH3 (14 weeks) CH |
First published: September 28, 2018
|
gray hatching : no chart data available for this year
Filmography
- 1994: Giorgino
- 2005: Avant que l'ombre
- 2006: Arthur and the Minimoys
- 2009: Arthur and the Minimoys 2 - The Return of Evil M
- 2010: Arthur and the Minimoys 3 - The big decision
- 2018: Ghostland
Awards
-
NRJ Music Awards :
- 2000: Best concert
- 2000: Best French-language album
- 2000: Best French-speaking singer
- 2001: Best French-speaking singer
- 2002: Best French-speaking singer
- 2003: Best French-speaking singer
- 2006: Best French-language album
- 2009: Best French-language album
-
M6 Awards :
- 2000: Best clip
-
World Music Awards :
- 1993: Best French-speaking commercial success
-
Victoires de la Musique :
- 1988: Victoire de la chanteuse francophone
literature
Primary works
- Mylène Farmer: Lisa-Loup et le conteur. Ed. Anne Carrière, Paris 2003. ISBN 2-84337-221-6 .
Secondary works
- Bernard Violet: Mylène Farmer. Ed. Fayard, Paris 2004. ISBN 2-213-62034-2 .
- Antoine Bioy, Benjamin Thiry, Caroline Bee: Mylène Farmer: la part d'ombre. Ed. Archipelago, Paris 2003. ISBN 2-84187-536-9 .
- Annie et Bernard Reval: Mylène Farmer: de chair et de sang. Ed. France Empire, Paris 2004. ISBN 2-7048-0985-2 .
- Jean-Claude Perrier: Mylène Farmer: au cœur du mythe. Ed. Bartillat, Paris 2003. ISBN 2-84100-306-X .
- David Marguet: Mylène Farmer: mystérieuse sylphide. Ed. La Mascara, 2000. ISBN 2-914237-00-6 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Dossier de presse Universal
- ^ Mylène Farmer fait son retour aux côtés de Sting
- ↑ Announcement of the new album Interstellaires
- ↑ Mylene Farmer 2019 | Billetterie Mylène Farmer. Retrieved February 18, 2019 .
- ↑ Chart sources: Charts FR (1996-2018) Charts FR (1985-2018) Charts BEW (Wallonia) Charts DE Charts AT Charts CH
- ↑ http://www.francesoir.fr/loisirs/musique/du-temps-decouvrez-et-commentez-nouveau-single-mylene-farmer-154874.html
Web links
- Mylène Farmer at Discogs (English)
- Mylène Farmer in the Internet Movie Database (English)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Farmer, Mylène |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Mylène Jeanne Gautier |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | french pop singer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 12, 1961 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Pierrefonds , Montréal , Canada |