Alizée is preparing for the Serge Gainsbourg Concert Hommage in Tel Aviv, tonight (28 July 2010).
This photo via her official Tumblr account, in rehearsal with Lulu Gainsbourg:
Good luck with the performance tonight Alizée, I’m sure it will be great as always. To all the fans in Israel – enjoy the big night!
First off, let me just say that I am not a Goldfrapp aficionado but her single “Rocket” from the beginning of the year caught my eye when it came out back then. Off the album Head First it sets the tone for a 80’s theme album with heavy synthesizer influence. Have a listen if you are not familiar with the track.
This was a risky album for Alison Goldfrapp (44), one that was ultimately met with acclaim from music critics and reached a fair modicum of success, though not selling in numbers as large as her previous effort.
The album stands out to me because I think their are parallels between it and Alizée’s latest album, Une Enfant Du Siècle. Yes its true that the Goldfrapp album was not a concept album and overall its a very different sound, but it was also heavily themed with a synthpop tone. Interestingly both albums are even cited as having Giorgio Moroder influences. A fun fact is that Goldfrapp has a history of releasing limited edition picture vinyls, look it up.
In just going to come out and ask, how is it that the Goldfrapp album garnered decent sales yet Une Enfant Du Siècle blipped briefly and had the lowest sales volume of all of her previous albums? The concept was clearly not that far of the mark? The only conclusion I can get to is that the French market is just not that big, quite possibly if this was an album performed by an English artist we would have seen better results purely based on the fact that the pie is bigger. Interestingly according to wikipedia Head First only made it to position 70 in French album charts the second lowest of the listed figures, what does that tell us?
Still .. I would like to see UEDS performed live, here’s hoping the concerts turn into reality. Have a look Goldfrapp performing Rocket performed live, maybe just a little too authentic retro – I prefer what Alizée showed us at the showcase, more of that please!
Much marketing recently in fan circles recently: Alizee Nation weighing in on the topic of fan made T-shirts with the support of an official logo released for that exact purpose, and Lady Cameron XIII mentioning the NIN fan made DVD (This one is one us) a few times.
It got me thinking though, how much of the tons of fan generated material that is put out on the web and other channels nowadays is considered favorably by artists? Having done some work for corporate clients (brand owners) in my “real” job over the years I quickly learnt how easy it is to upset brand owners. The layout had to be just right, the colors need to perfect, “respect the brand bible”. Does this bother the average indy band?
On the upside what you get in return is free marketing, and lots of it. Is a semi-official t-shirt on someone’s back money out of the artists pocket or a free dollar or ten tossed into the marketing effort? Loss Vs Profit.
You’ll probably find that the answer to that correlates directly with the success of the band, and their capability of pulling crowds. The truth is that this artist perception of fans stealing from them is such a useless topic, in a world where the rights to intellectual property is getting increasingly devalued the right play is to move and embrace it quickly and stop fighting it.
I like Alizée Nations idea of releasing a special edition of a logo or branding solely for use by fans. Its important that artists sill control the terms on which they give away their freebies. I like the idea of holding remix contests too, another means of taking something that you produced and having other build on top of it to take it to another level, on beatport there always remix contests going on, its certainly a hot trend, and by artists providing the genuine stems to their tracks the quality of these remixes are raised.
An interesting space, what do you say A? Help me, help you 
The 4th of July 2010, marks a special day for all Alizée fans, 10 years ago marks the start of her illustrious career so far, and the song will always remain special on our hearts for that reason.
In celebration why not watch it below courtesy of Youtube? Wonder if that dude ever got his money back
Also a nice little vid put at Alizée Nation that I think sums up the significance of the moment nicely, watch it here.
Its cold and winter is definitely here for us South Africans, the weather round the Cape being particularly punishing. So with Twitter and the TV showing scenes of summer on my mind the following silliness happened:
Images taken from the videos: Gourmandises (2001), Les Collines (2010)
