Mylène Farmer in “Le Monde”, the enduring star of showbiz

Et if there is only one left… At the start of her career, Mylène Farmer summed herself up in The world to a name dropped over a list of successful artists. So many more or less shooting stars of showbiz, in its harsh and cynical school. While the star, today’s unapproachable divinity, begins a two-month tour in Lille on June 3, preparing to once again fill the biggest stadiums in France, nothing has indicated her yet, in the midst of the 1980s, to stand out and maintain such a cult following. The one who is simply “Mylène” for her fans, like another was quite simply “Johnny”, was still only a record seller among others, lost in the alphabetical order of the bins.

Thus, on June 25, 1986, when she had just released her first album, moon ashes, it arises for the first time, in the midst of other artists or groups, such as The Cure, Gold, Niagara or Alain Chamfort, in an article by Catherine Humblot dealing with the ambitions of FR3 Toulouse. Over the readings of the newspaper, the singer remains for a time confined in ephemeral catalogs taken from the Top 50.

But, in 1988, an ingredient will very quickly distinguish the one who receives that year the title of best female performer at the Victoires de la Musique: her clips. Accompanying the titles Libertine, Without counterfeit Or Provided they are soft, the videos produced by Laurent Boutonnat, his cicerone in the field of cinema, are thought of as short films, notes Jean-Louis André in The world, December 26. as much as their “world of fantasies”, their cost – up to 2 million francs, the equivalent of 543,000 euros – and their duration – up to eighteen minutes – challenge the journalist who describes the place taken by these short films in the recording industry. “The script itself becomes more important, almost, than the song”, he notes.

melancholic pop

Exit Maritie and Gilbert Carpentier! Mylène Farmer embodies a new way of consuming music, a certain taste for transgression and a new form of spleen. On November 8, 1990, Ariane Chemin made the observation, in the course of a series of articles on the universe of 15-20 year olds: “One of the most significant successes of this “rock aesthetic”, It is Provided they are soft, by Mylene Farmer. The lyrics, quite hard (…), do not come directly to the ears. We dance to it, that’s all. »

This way of mixing sound and dance, sound and image in Technicolor, sometimes toning down the first behind the seconds, is variously appreciated by informed critics. “It is the supreme completion of a journey made of a concentrate of the spirit of the times, between inconsistent pop music and melancholic puffs”, observes Thomas Sotinel, on May 23, 1991, about the third album, baptized The other, with its flagship title, Disenchanted.

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