Christine and the Queens returns with Queen Madonna

The artist who is again called Christine and the Queens, now gendered to the masculine, returns with a new album where Madonna puts her voice, served by a show marking on the road.

Forgotten the confusing alias Redcar chosen mid-November 2022 for the release of a record, Les adorables étoiles, passed a little unnoticed. And which was only the prologue in French of a sequel in English, Paranoïa, angels, true love, more seductive and which comes out this Friday.

See alsoChristine and the Queens: quit or double for her fourth album

The adorable stars was preceded by two concerts at the Cirque d'Hiver in Paris, the setting for a visceral and overloaded performance, intended for the ultimate fans.

As a prelude to Paranoia, angels, true love, the pop singer broke in at the Californian Coachella festival in April and especially at the French Art Rock festival in May, unveiling five new titles.

Christine and the Queens at the Coachella Festival, April 2023. EMMA MCINTYRE

Those who attended were amazed. "It was hyper-impressive, a total show, we went beyond a concert," Alice Boinet, programmer of Art Rock, told AFP. This festival is accustomed to this kind of good moves since Phoenix, a French group that like Christine and the Queens finds a beautiful echo internationally, had revealed its scenography for its latest opus Alpha Zulu last year.

« Dominator »

«

On stage, for Christine and the Queens, there is a monumental statue, Anglo-Saxon musicians and him, in the middle, very theatrical, with a vocal power that we had perhaps forgotten a little and that stuck the audience " continues Alice Boinet.

The thirty-year-old artist will walk the European scenes, the United Kingdom, go back through North America, without forgetting obviously some passages in France to carry this album, of 20 titles in its long version, 9 in the short. Obviously, the titles with Madonna -Angels crying in my bed, I met an angel and Lick the light out- will make talk.

The megastar, who will begin a world tour this summer to celebrate his 40-year career, speaks in a spectral voice. Which fits perfectly with the themes of spiritual path after a bereavement - Christine and the Queens lost her mother in recent years - and love quest that cross the record.

The French artist, revealed by the album Chaleur humaine (2014), explains in his notes of intent sent to the interpreter of Vogue "parts to read instead of choruses to sing, in order to speak to the actress who is in her".

And to salute "this iconic voice, so iconic, of Madonna, which speaks with all facets (inscribed) in our consciousness, taking multiple forms and roles, from the mother figure to the dominatrix".

« You're crazy »

Madonna, a big fan of the Frenchman, had even invited him in 2015 to join her on stage at Bercy (Accor Arena) in Paris, slamming her butt for a video sequence that has gone viral.

But how to convince the singer of Material girl to participate in a very conceptual project on paper? "It was played on a phone call, she told me: 'You're crazy, I'll do it'," says Christine and the Queens in the French magazine Les Inrockuptibles.

We must not stop at the songs where Madonna appears, nor the esoteric interview passages of Christine and the Queens. Who thus relates in Les Inrockuptibles a complex discussion with the DJs of a French radio. They assure them that they can "judge the effectiveness of a piece in the first ten seconds", he speaks to them of "shamanic journey"...

The album, which the Frenchman co-produced with Mike Dean (collaborator of Jay-Z, The Weeknd or Beyoncé), includes beautiful moments like the ballad I feel like an angel. The songs Big Eye and Tears can be soft enjoy a rhythm à la Portishead (one of the leading British bands of trip-hop). And Marvin descending promises chills on stage.