Alizée

Alizée Jacotey (born August 21, 1984 in Ajaccio, Corsica) is a famous French singer. She goes by the stage name Alizée (pronounced: /a.lɪ.ze/, or, roughly, "ah-lee-zay") — the feminine form of alizé, the trade wind. She was discovered by Mylène Farmer, the most successful French pop singer, following her winning performance in the talent show, Graines de Star, in 1999. While collaborating with Mylène Farmer and Laurent Boutonnat, Alizée came up with two albums — both of which were hits inside and outside of France. Alizée was considered the protégée of Mylène Farmer.

Alizée entered the music business in the year 2000. Since then she has released two studio albums, composed by Laurent Boutonnat and written by Mylène Farmer. Her first album was Gourmandises, which sold 2 millions of copies within two months of release. Gourmandises was a success both in France and abroad — after it had its international launch in 2001 — earning Alizée the distinction of being the highest selling female French singer in 2001. The album featured her most successful single "Moi... Lolita" which reached the number one spot on music charts of most countries in Europe and Asia in which it was released. The marketing campaign around the single affixed Alizée's image as that of a seductive lolita, referring to the novel by Vladimir Nabokov.

Gourmandises was followed by a second studio album, Mes Courants Électriques in 2003, which was also quite successful having sold 500 000 copies the first year of its release, though not as big a hit as Alizée's debut album. Following its release, Alizée toured France during the fall of 2003, performing in 43 concerts throughout France, along with Belgium and Switzerland.

Alizée has sold more than six million albums throughout Europe, Russia and parts of Asia. She has taken part in various stage shows and live performances throughout Europe and Russia. She has also starred in a Japanese TV commercial. Though not nearly as popular in North America as she is in much of Europe, Alizée's dance from "J'en Ai Marre" was the influence for the Night Elf female dance in Blizzard Entertainment's best-selling game World of Warcraft.

Following her marriage in late 2003, Alizée has taken a hiatus from singing and has avoided appearing in the media since. Her first television appearance since then was on MTV France on February 18, 2006.

Since Alizée took a break from the music business, there was no confirmed official word regarding her comeback for almost 3 years. Her official site has been down since the summer of 2005. Since then, many rumors had surfaced, many of which eventually turned out to be false.

After almost two years of fan speculation, on April 3, 2006, a handwritten message, signed Alizée, was received by the webmaster of the fansite Le Nid d'Alizée, stating that she is working on the third album.

On July 7, 2006, the show Le JT de la musique on French TV channel "Europe 2 TV" reported that Alizée has separated from her former producer and song writer Mylène Farmer and is now working on her third album. It was also reported that the lyrics of the new album are being penned by Jean Faulques. Her husband, Jérémy Châtelain, is also associated with the album. He has since confirmed this information in an interview.

Her third album Psychédélices was released in December of 2007, including the first single; Mademoiselle Juliette, which is also the first track from the album. The album is considered artistically inferior of her previous efforts and had a moderate success in France, where it has reached number seven on the download chart and sixteen on the main chart. Many of her fans were disappointed from this album because of the absence of her previous collaborators Mylène Farmer and Laurent Boutonnat.

The official website of Alizée is www.alizee-officiel.com