Right, you may need a catch up here, Dear Reader, so pay attention.
Christine And The Queens just dropped her first new material of the year, the stonking ‘Girlfriend’. Getting a first play on BBC Radio 1 this evening (17h May), you can read all about it here, and check out our first listen review here.
We’re not stopping there, though. Tomorrow from 11am, she’ll also be appearing on Beats 1 to talk to Matt Wilkinson. You can listen in for the full chat then, but we’ve also been given a few choice sections from the pre-recorded interview. Here’s what we’ve learned.
On her alter-ego “Chris”…
I think I’ll always be slightly confused – which is what’s fun! But it’s good now because people are even more confused now between my civil state, my first stage name and this altered stroked-out name. I guess I like to be called Chris more and more because it’s kind of evolving. I’m back and I’m evolving. It’s about making the character evolve in a way that feels to me that it fits more well with where I’m at now. And Chris feels more like a nickname, like something that is more confident and exposed and I do feel like the new sounds are going to be very much about that.
On new song ‘Girlfriend’…
It’s an interesting process because it was made first in Paris – me dreaming about G-funk and writing this track in Paris with LA in mind. And I went in LA to search for one person in particular who’s on the track – DāM-FunK – because I’ve been listening and obsessed with this album called ‘7 Days of Funk’ and meeting DāM-FunK was one of the highlights of last year. He came in the studio, typical DāM-FunK, with black sunglasses and incredible poise and he was like, ‘So Christine, what do you need me to do?’ And I was like, ‘I don’t know just be yourself!’ And he did one take of the keytar solo and then he did some ad-libs and I was like, ‘I can’t believe I did that’.
On male figures such as Eminem and Leonardo Dicaprio as well as ’90s Madonna…
It’s kind of a really weird mood-board I had at some point. I think female presence, female voices, female desires are going to be a really interesting subject to tackle because recently it’s been about the violence of patriarchy over women. Some people seem to discover with ‘Me Too’ and the second step for me is women taking back what’s been stolen, meaning the narrative, the voices, the ability to talk for ourselves. And we see lots of powerful females actually starting to express more and more… I mean Grimes is a powerful artist, Kelela, HAIM. They’re all taking back the narratives and I was like, ‘how can I exist myself? What’s my new way of existing?’
And my mood-board was quite eclectic and might be a bit contradictory but it was interesting for that because my way of working power – it was thinking of the figure of a tiny scoundrel, a tiny brat, something that can be annoying to you. So I was like, ‘Slim Shady is interesting to me’ and he’s a macho man…and what if it was an inspiration for a female character? I was like, ‘OK interesting’. Leonardo Di Caprio in ‘Romeo & Juliet’ – interesting figure of a young youth but ambiguous – like tiny, mafioso and interesting. I kind of wanted to steal the energy of some male characters and use it for myself because this is how I like to work, I like to steal things from men basically. From what is considered male narratives. And Madonna in the ’90s was a huge influence for me as well.
On being an outcast…
When you used to feel like you don’t belong, when people suddenly welcome you, you don’t really know how to receive it at first. I have to admit it was incredible what happened to me on the first album and in a way I didn’t really understand it and it was really moving because I toured a lot and I received a lot of things but in a way I didn’t process them all and then I stopped touring and I was back in Paris in the streets and then I understood what happened to me. I went to see gigs in Paris and I went to big venues I played and I was like, ‘I played that venue!’ And then you realise what happened and you don’t know what to do with all that love until you’re like, ‘ok, well it’s an incredible chance I have to actually try to mend things maybe for me and other people’.
On the TV show ‘The Voice’…
I haven’t been to a gig in a long time and I’m going to confess why, because it makes me jealous because I’m not on stage! Sometimes I turn on French TV and it’s ‘The Voice’ and I’m mad because I’m like “give me that mic!”. I don’t think they would take me.
On Beyonce…
I went to see the Formation tour and I cried. I cried because I do love how crafty, thought-rehearsed, perfect-aiming this is. I love the fact that with Beyonce you can just sit and relax. She’s just owning everything. And it’s a pure, reptilian pleasure of watching something without any worries or problems. It’s like perfect on stage. But then again what’s interesting is that I’m not Beyonce and I’m not aiming to be that perfect and I do like awkwardness and accidents myself but I do share this will of doing a spectacle which means you escape, you escape in the performance it’s just not a gig in the like ‘cool – next track!’ You just escape.