Mylene Farmer - Stade de France (2010)

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Mylene Farmer - Stade de France (2010)

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Mylène Jeanne Gautier was born in the town of Pierrefonds near Montreal on September 12th 1961. Her father, an engineer, was employed in Canada at the time building a dam system and Mylène and her brothers and sister (Brigitte, Michel and Jean Loup), were brought up in the French-speaking province of Québec. When Mylène was 10 the family returned to France, settling in the Paris suburb of Ville d'Avray. In her teenage years Mylène was passionate about horses and she would devote all her free time and energy to riding. But 17-year-old Mylène's other great passion in life was acting and she would eventually abandon the stables to take a three-year course at the Cours Florent, a prestigious drama school in Paris.

Changing her name to Mylène Farmer, Mylène began to earn a living as a model and even went on to star in several TV ads. It was around this time that Mylène met Laurent Boutonnat, a young man who was also trained as an actor. This encounter was to change the course of Mylène’s life, for Laurent not only became her partner but also a kind of Pygmalion figure, helping her get her career off the ground. Laurent, whose ambition was to become a film director, was also the driving force behind Mylène’s amazing videos. Laurent Boutonnat teamed up with the young songwriter, Jérôme Dahan, and the pair went on to write Mylène’s first hit, "Maman a tort" - a single which rocketed straight to the top of the French charts as soon as it was released in March 1984. The video which accompanied the single release, cost the modest sum of 5,000 francs, but it would cause a veritable stir in the music world. Boutonnat cast Mylène as a kind of provocative Lolita figure, and the singer would deliberately cultivate this image in the early days of her career, especially on her début album, "Cendres de lune". This album released in January 1986, proved to be an immense success, selling over 1 million copies.

"Libertine", the first single released from the album in March 86, set the tone for the whole Mylène Farmer style. Mylène’s sensual, romantic lyrics were very much inspired by the great figures of 19th century literature and set to sophisticated melodies. Boutonnat also took charge of directing Mylène’s videos, imposing his distinctive style on them. The video which accompanied "Libertine", for instance, is heavily charged with 18th century eroticism (conjuring up images of the film "Barry Lyndon" and the novels of the Marquis de Sade). Mylène, lit only in the glow of soft candlelight, is shrouded in an aura of mystery and sexual ambiguity. (This mysterious erotic ambience would continue to be the singer’s trademark throughout the rest of her career, infusing the following videos "Tristana" and "Sans contrefaçon").

Mylène’s second album, "Ainsi soit-je", smashed all her previous sales records, soaring to the top of the album charts imme-diately after its release in March 1988. This album, infused with the same dark, erotic atmosphere as the singer’s previous work, featured songs inspired by Mylène’s favourite authors, the French romantic poet Baudelaire and the American horror writer Edgar Allan Poe. The album also featured a particularly erotic version of Juliette Gréco’s hit "Déshabillez-moi".

In spite of all her drama courses Mylène still found it difficult to overcome her natural shyness and perform in front of an audience. It was only after much hesitation that the singer finally agreed to do a live concert in 1989. After singing at a small venue in St Etienne, as a kind of test run, Mylène finally arrived in Paris to perform at the Palais des Sports where fans packed the auditorium out for a whole week in May. Mylène wasted no time in overcoming her stage fright and even appeared to enjoy performing on stage, for she followed the Paris concerts with an extensive tour which included 52 dates throughout France and Europe. Mylène's spectacular stage shows together with her wacky appearance and piercing vocals, soon began to attract an increasing number of fans. Meanwhile Mylène continued to surround herself with an air of mystery, refusing to give interviews or to appear in the media - but this only served to excite fans' curiosity about the reclusive star. Mylène devoted almost the whole of 1990 to her work in the studio, recording 10 new songs for her album "L'autre", which was finally released in April 91. Boutonnat recreated his special magic once again in the spectacular videos accompanying Désenchantée, Regrets, Je t'aime mélancolie and Beyond My Control. The video for the latter was banned from French TV screens, however, censors deeming it too violent and shoc-king for viewers. Mylène followed the album with a hugely successful tour, which attracted tens of thousands of fans. Encouraged by this success, Mylène released a special compilation album in November 1992, featuring dance remixes of her greatest hits. In the winter of 92/93 Mylène Farmer set off for Slovakia with Laurent Boutonnat to star in his first feature film "Giorgino".

The pair spent five long hard months, trudging through the snow and working under extremely difficult conditions, Mylène throwing herself body and soul into her role as a young autist.

Accustomed as she was to pulling off phenomenal record sales with the greatest of ease and performing sell-out tours across France, Mylène was totally unprepared for her first failure. When "Giorgino" hit the cinema screens on October 4 1994, Boutonnat’s film proved to be a spectacular flop. The film, which had involved a huge budget of over 80 million francs, recovered a paltry 1 and a half million francs at the box office. Fans who had flocked to see Mylène Farmer in concert were definitely not queuing to see their music idol at the cinema, and, owing to an almost total lack of interest, the film was taken off Paris screens after only a three-week run. Devastated by this cinematic failure, Mylène left France and moved to Los Angeles for a while and she would eventually decide to record her next album, Anamorphosée", in the States. The album, which was released in France on October 17 1995, revealed a new-style. Mylène Farmer. The singer’s new material was definitely more rock-oriented, featuring a much more energetic, electric guitar sound. The cover of the new album showed that Mylène’s image had also undergone a radical transformation. The portrait on the album cover, taken by the famous American photographer Herb Ritts, showed a new-look Mylène who had left the ambiguous Lolita image of her old days behind and gone for a more mature leather look. Mylène’s videos had also undergone a radical transformation. After the spectacular flop of "Giorgione", Mylène’s new videos were no longer placed under the artistic direction of Laurent Boutonnat. They were shot instead by top American film directors such as Abel Ferrara who made the video for "California".

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Mylene Farmer - Stade de France (2010)

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Mylene Farmer - Stade de France (2010)

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Mylene Farmer - Stade de France (2010)

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Mylene Farmer - Stade de France (2010)

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Mylene Farmer - Stade de France (2010)

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