Zazie Concert in Paris

It’s not easy to argue that Zazie is one of the most singular and interesting cases in the French commercial music scene in the last few decades. She will be playing a highly-awaited concert on the 10th of February on the outskirts of Paris, at the Espace Jacques Prevert http://www.infoconcert.com/salle/espace-jacques-prevert-a-aulnay-9165/concerts.html in the town of Aulnay-sous-Bois, 9 miles from the centre of the French capital.

Née Isabelle de Truchis de Varennes in 1964 -her artistic name is a tribute to the protagonist of ‘Zazie in the Metro’, the masterpiece of the surrealist writer Raymond Queneau, who was an oustanding member of the High Pataphysical Studies College. His novel made him known to the large public and was majestically adapted to the big screen by Louis Malle a few years after its publication in 1959-, Zazie had a complete formation in music, which her mother was a teacher of, and thus developed a very important role since she was a child. During that time, not only did she study the violin, piano and guitar but also learned how to love the classics of the French ‘chanson’, such as Barbara, Jacques Brel or Georges Brassen, who somehow shaped her early start as a songwriter.

Despite that, until 1993, the year of the huge success of her single ‘Sucré Sale’, which made her a deserved winner of the award of Best French Song of that year, Zazie was better known as a model (hence the photographs from her album ‘Made in Love’ were made by Mondino) than a singer. This fact throws her into the same category as Ana Karina, Jane Birkin (for who Zazie wrote a song in 1999), Vanessa Paradis or Carla Bruni, in a long French tradition of models who became shining pop stars.

With a degree in pyschotherapy, she, together with the aforementioned growth, especially on the lyrical level, of new French singing figures, her interest in the work of Peter Gabriel and the so called World Music (following the footsteps of the British singer, who was her first mentor, she recorded her first albums in a cave) were her biggest influences. However, in 2004, with her album ‘Rodeo’, she began to show a certain turn towards electronic music.

Despite being one of the most successful French artists in her country, Zazie’s career has not been lacking controversy, especially regarding her songs with a homoerotic male content. The most famous controversy was regarding ‘Un point c’est toi’, the screening of its video, which immediately became one of the most viewed in France during the 90s, nearly vetoed a TV channel in Canada.

Paul Oilzum

Zazie is one of the biggest figures of French commercial music from the last twenty years. her concerts are always an event whose value goes beyond the musical one to fully enter the sociologic sphere. Check it out if you rent apartments in Paris during those dates.

Contact Me 

Translated by: aleixgwilliam
Contact Me