Christine And The Queens (the Héloïse Letissier thread)

Ok so this album is Top 10 over here and at least half of it is straight-up fantastic. No thread so far?

Well anyway..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RBzsjga73s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uWY7bwycEs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9XeN3MSbyk

what say you?

She's great. Because of the internets, I'm not sure when it's being released where, but it's been out since early-ish 2015.

can anyone explain the sudden commercial success of this? upon seeing it in the UK top 10 my guess initially was the TV appearances and glastonbury but then i saw that she was top 10 in australia too and she hasn't, to my knowledge, had much mainstream exposure here.

she's a superlative performer. my favourites are saint claude, tilted and safe and holy but the whole album is a very pleasant listen. allegedly the songs are better in original french - i'm yet to confirm tho

Is the tv show Girls popular in Australia?

the album has been big here in France since last year so I'm surprised to see that it's only breaking now elsewhere.

yeah some of these songs have been around for a very long time. the 'IT' demo is on youtube dated 2011.

Is the tv show Girls popular in Australia?

no more so than anywhere else afaik

New album coming soon!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVQcNkpSuPg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnLdw5IOvy4

well this is a huge leap forward

What's with the lack of posts on ilx about her? Is there a different thread? Baflling.

Love the new single ('Girlfriend')and sterling work by co-producer Dam Funk. Worth checking her performance on latest edition of Jools Holland if you have access to iPlayer.

Forgot about YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptu3TFmF0Jo

Totally obsessed with the latest single
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCwD5f1APTY

Wow, that one is so excellent!

So excited for this album. I liked the debut, but these two singles are miles ahead of anything on there.

Liking this a lot, much more than 'Doesn't matter'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8eulIH7tU0

this album is gonna rule

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EF0bAlv4DRc

this is the best one yet. i'm enjoying all these singles much more than anything from the debut, excited for this

https://www.gq.com/story/the-re-reinvention-of-christine-and-the-queens

https://pitchfork.com/features/song-by-song/christine-and-the-queens-heloise-letissier-breaks-down-every-song-on-her-new-album-chris/

this is a really great album and probably my favourite pop album this year, but 'the stranger' is such an odd closer, it's so different in tone to the rest of the album it just feels like a bonus track. also weird that 'le g' isn't included on the english version

This is fantastic - I like how the Spotify version immediately gives you the entire album all over again but in French. (The French version is better!)

i am really surprised this hasn't got much attention here yet, like it's one of the best pop albums of the year (the best imo), draws heavily on jam & lewis, excellent lyrics discussing gender etc. (at least in english but my bilingual friend says the french lyrics are even better)

idk that all seems like ilm bait to me

I like this album a lot.

Really not feeling it (compared to first LP) but I guess I'm just not that into the stuff (eg 80s gloss-funk) she references

and lyrically, sure it's articulate but, boy, does it feel talkative

something french... talkative... ?????!

talkative isn't a problem at all to me, it's just refreshing to hear someone cover this lyrical ground so well when others that have tried similar things and even been praised (such as shaking the habitual) have just felt clumsy to me

totally fair if you're just not into what it's referencing though, i didn't really get into her debut much at all

I’m in awe of what she’s achieved with this album - still getting my head around it, frankly. “Bruce est dans le brouillard”... Matty Healy would be weeping.

I really love this album. I've had it on repeat over the weekend. A huge step up from her debut.

My God this is incredible yeah.

I feel like she is operating on a level that very few pop acts are even close to approaching rn

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPAH_2lf7Mw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8w4gSPIYSc

the choreography is so good on top of everything else

I like it well enough but won't deliver a final judgment. The electrobeats aren't as twitchy or densely layered as Haim's but she's a more compelling singer than Danielle.

"People, I've been sad" (out today) is a beaut.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGirXOIssqI

I think Heloise Letissier is my favorite working pop artist at the moment. "People, I've been sad" blows me away

Yes, this is great. Particularly love the slinky synth bass underpinning it.

^^ and the overlapping vocals

new single "la vita nuova" out tomorrow featuring caroline polachek

27th February - 8.30pm CET 🩸♥️ https://t.co/bSySj8ezvG pic.twitter.com/sJ5cL4dEEh

— Chris (@QueensChristine) February 25, 2020

Awesome news! I wonder if there's a new album coming or if these are just one off singles?

6 track EP and short film out now! https://pitchfork.com/news/christine-and-the-queens-shares-new-ep-and-short-film-watch/

multiple fire emojis!

god the song with caroline is fucking amazing

italian ululation and then a huge haim-style chorus

this is her best work

Yeah, this is all right

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIdSORj_dd0

(and the actual sounds)
https://soundcloud.com/christineandthequeens/sets/la-vita-nuova-1

This is a great EP. She just keeps getting better!

new album delves into synth-heavy post-punk, kinda coldwave? a bit of a departure

apparently a second album is on the way too, produced by mike dean

i also didn't realise chris had been a relative flop, it was really good and a step up from the debut but i guess it didn't produce the same sort of hits somehow?

it's a weird listen because it still has much more of a pop sensibility than a lot of what it's drawing on but it's pretty raw and unstructured for a pop album

feels like after a few more listens i'll either think it's completely brilliant or be completely frustrated by its indulgences

interested in hearing the mike dean record

but the direction Redcar's gone in the past five years has been a real diminishment for me

sad that the change (imho diminishment) in music has coincided with his transition, and that he'll likely internalize the reaction to the former on the latter

the observer profile bummed me out
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/nov/06/christine-and-the-queens-redcar-interview-adorables-etoiles

both chris and la vita nuova were very good so i'm not sure what you mean

just this new one is a weirder more self-indulgent thing and i very much get why his label has no idea what to make of it but it sounds like things are tense and no one's happy

I don't follow C&tQ enough to have known that he transitioned this year, and have liked the stray song in the past and the recent one with Charli XCX and Caroline Polachek; but a quick listen to a bit of this Redcar album and I think it's really good! It's weird and arty and pretentious and I can see why people might be taken aback by this stuff. Anyway I'll probably listen to this some more.

Les étoiles is beautiful

wow just sampling on bandcamp and this is wonderful

For me the new record is a bit aimless and opaque, unfortunately, outside of "rien dire" which I adore. Between the loss of his mother, the broken leg, and label tensions it sounds like it's been a rough trot for him and I don't anticipate this album garnering the same level of critical or commercial praise as the prior releases, so I hope that doesn't make things worse for him on a personal level.

I think he is an extraordinary talent and the live show I saw a couple of years ago was one of the best ever. So I'm hopeful that the Mike Dean album might be more my speed.

I've been enjoying this, but (at least on Spotify) the backing production is super muddy? It's like someone is playing 80s synthpop records in a wardrobe in another room, really loud.

Struggling to make sense of the new album. Agree with Monotony that Rien Dire is the clear standout. I did like the really one that samples Gina X Performance as well. I'll spend more time with it as I really want to love this album.

It's a strange situation that Chris was relative commercial disappointment. The album got universal acclaim, good radio play and seemed to be promoted really well. Girlfriend, Doesn't Matter and 5 Dollars should have all been huge hits. The debut seemed to be a success on Tilted alone. Chris was a big step-up and the EP was even better. It has been sad to see this new one come out with so little fanfare. The one video from the album so far appears to have no budget. The Guardian article is really worrying. I hope things get better for him. He's one of the biggest talents out there. I don't see this album doing that well and hope that doesn't mean the next album gets even less of a push.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNh-6sNxx6A

first single from the album with mike dean sounds much better

album has three madonna (!) collabs

A triple album with the seventh track called "Track 10" (could it be a Charli cover???) It certainly sounds...intriguing, especially with all the Madonna features.

It was interesting too that when speaking with Clara Amfo on BBCR1 Chris didn't mention Redcar at all, and Clara was acting as though there hadn't been any new C&TQ material in ages. I wonder if Redcar and its songs will be dropped altogether from future tours, or if its dry coldwave will permeate through this new album too.

lol i hope it's a charli cover

https://www.standard.co.uk/esmagazine/christine-and-the-queens-interview-new-album-trans-paranoia-angels-true-love-b1067166.html

confirmation that madonna is just doing some spoken word bits (how did i know that's what it would be lol)

lol there is an 11 minute track on this

the album is a lot to grapple with, but there's definitely more for me to enjoy here than on Redcar

you could make a very good album out of half of this but the other half is pretty meandering. still a much better sort of self-indulgent mess than redcar though

it's also just weird to hear mike dean in this mode outside of his work with kanye, this sound is so closely associated with him.

i think the only thing i really dislike is "full of life" being built around pachelbel's canon, that's such a corny move. otherwise this is mostly great despite being all together way too much

"Tears can be so soft" is a deep jam, trip hop vibes, incredible stuff going on. What's the song it reminds me of? Not the Marvin Gaye sample, though that is also a+

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cM8cBIfzRjs

The live show is mindbending, what an incredible artist. Really opened the album for me. Hard to put into words what was going on, but these reviews do a decent job:
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/jun/18/christine-and-the-queens-review-meltdown-royal-festival-hall-london
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/jun/24/christine-and-the-queens-review-grief-lust-and-transcendence

There must be full footage of the Glastonbury show somewhere
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBpGd9gZtRg

I'm with you. The album has connected with a huge amount over the last week. For a 90 minute album, it's remarkably consistent and almost always captivating.

What's the song it reminds me of?

massive attack's "teardrop"?

definitely hearing massive attack

it's the cadence of "I miss my mother miss my mother miss my mother at night" that tickles, could be an old soul song or something 90s, could be MJ, can't place it but it's instantly familiar

idk then, beyond the production there's a few little bits of the vocal melody that are very reminiscent of "teardrop" but not the part you're thinking of

i still wish the album was a little shorter but it's really strong overall, a pretty immense accomplishment. the second half of "lick the light out" is probably my favourite bit

There must be full footage of the Glastonbury show somewhere

You scallywag! Shiver me timbers! Jolly roger might have a link in the briny deep etc

Separate note here that Chris was a guest judge on the opening episode of Drag Race France Season 2 the other day. Fun appearance! The lip sync choice was the duet with Indochine (whose lead dude was the other guest judge).

this is fun: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlIYME8iQ1Y

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CM2ShBEyTKU

new single

What? What?!?! Cerrone X what?!?!!

Catching feelings out Friday !#cerrone pic.twitter.com/Ei1zsye7e5

— Christine and the Queens (@QueensChristine) May 21, 2025

Another snippet of the Cerrone collab

Get ready! 'Catching feelings' out this Friday with #cerrone pic.twitter.com/TQWGmZLgo8

— Christine and the Queens (@QueensChristine) May 21, 2025

I know that I have read threads where there seemed to be a significant number of Italo Disco fans on this forum. But perhaps this sound has fallen out of fashion again.

I once started on the Cerrone discography in chronological order...Cerrone IV is already pretty patchy and the decade after that is all terrible, I am not sure whether I made it to X-Xex (1993)

this is alright, but i'm finding this brand of disco to be a bit played out at this point. also i'm wondering if he's retiring the rahim redcar name and reverting to C&tQ again? Following his career is a little challenging these days.

Well. I went and checked and it seems he uses different names for different projects according to wikipedia. Redcar is the person, C&tQ is the artist name on this project, I guess?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rahim_Redcar#Name

Is it possible to get the correct name added to the thread title?