Christine & The Queens

After our recent travels in Mexico, Russia, and Germany, it's time to revisit France: the act presented today is absolutely hot, currently occupying high positions in charts all over the world. They are critics' darlings too. Or should I say she? The band that goes by the name of Christine & The Queens is really Héloïse Letissier, born 1 June 1988 in Nantes, France.

As a child, she would present her mother with macabre short stories about death and, at the age of 12, she cultivated a passion for theatre. “We had to write our own character and I wrote myself as a dead marquis,” she says, miming slitting her own throat. After years as a loner, she had found a home: “Anything can happen onstage and it will all seem OK. Everything else in my life is full of anxiety, but on stage it’s fine.”

Letissier studied theatre at École normale supérieure de Lyon (ENS Lyon), moving to Paris in 2010, where she concluded her studies. At 22, Letissier was studying to be a stage director when a catastrophic breakup plunged her into a deep depression. Struggling to define her sexuality – she refers to herself as “bisexual-gay rather than bisexual 50-50” – and heartbroken, she fled Paris for London. Anxious in social situations normally, she found herself venturing out alone every night, eventually ending up in Soho’s den of glorious misfits, Madame Jojo’s. “It was a crazy queer night and I saw drag queens on stage and was like: ‘F*ck.’ When you watch them, it can be rough, you can see the sadness, but they’re just embracing it. I felt like a monster in a way, so I thought I’d create a freaky stage character.”

The resident drag queens of Madame Jojo’s were drawn to Letissier’s fragility and nursed her back to health. Slowly but surely Christine and the Queens was born, with her early shows, inspired by the comedian Andy Kaufman, taking a confrontational stance.

“Christine at the beginning was more of a dark character, because it came from a dark place,” she says. “I was trying to prove to myself that I was still alive in a way. Now I know that I exist, I think. So I’m easier on myself and the audience. I really embrace the pop side of being generous and bringing joy. I’m beginning to trust people a bit more and that never happened before.”

In fact, on stage, as Christine, Letissier is almost unrecognisable; a skipping, vogueing, gliding tornado of emotions that careers from the balletic to the aggressive. Even her chat between songs is bolder, often disintegrating into standup. “Humour is a way of being elegant, to soften the mood a bit,” she says. “It’s a way to relate to people socially.”

Letissier is growing bolder offstage, too. As a bisexual woman with an androgynous, non-sexualised alter ego (she describes Christine as “a young boy dreaming of being Beyoncé”) working in a male-dominated industry, she’s unafraid to fight her corner, sympathising with auteurs such as Grimes and Björk. “You feel you’re being a bitch saying: ‘I produced it, too,’ but you have to speak out. Thank God, it’s starting to be the topic of conversation, but we’re still having to come across as if we’re being bossy.”

Her debut EP which came out in 2011 was called Miséricorde. Lead song was It. The chorus goes: "Cause I've got it, I'm a man now". I guess that this verse gives us some idea of what "it" is.

It was followed by another EP in 2012 called Mac Abbey. Narcissus is Back was a minor hit:

.. And so was Cripple:

Her third release was an EP titled Nuit 17 à 52 which garnered her first charting on the official French Albums Chart with the help of its title track. Here it is:

In 2012, Christine and the Queens won the Best Discovered Act known as Découverte du Printemps de Bourges and also the Adami Premières Francos 2012 award.

On 2 June 2014 her first (and so far only) album was released: it was called Chaleur Humaine (Human Warmth) in Europe, while it was called Christine & The Queens in the US. The album was given a Metacritic rating of 85% based on 11 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". Opening track was It, which we've already heard. The first single off the album was the beautiful Saint Claude: listening to its melody, floating serenely above a stark backdrop of stammering beats and delicate slivers of electronics, you can see how it ended up a Top 5 single in France (#4) and #8 in Belgium.

The second single was called Christine and it was her biggest hit. A #1 hit in Belgium (and double-platinum), #3 in France, #32 in Switzerland, and #41 in the Netherlands.

More than a year later, the rest of the world has caught on with Christine. The single was re-released with English lyrics and a new title, Tilted. It was named one of the ten best songs of 2015 by Time magazine. It peaked at #1 in New Zealand Heatseekers chart, at #2 in the UK Indie Singles chart, #13 in Ireland, #18 in Scotland, #20 in the UK official chart, and #54 in Australia.

The album is informed by a sharp musical intelligence – Paradis Perdue (Paradise Lost - the next single, #19 in France and #39 in Belgium) takes an exquisitely orchestrated, vaguely Pink Floydish track from a 1973 album by French singer Christophe and Heartless from Kanye West’s 808s and Heartbreak, identifies a common mood between the two, and melds them together seamlessly – but one that it chooses to wear lightly. You never find yourself in the presence of music that sounds self-consciously clever. Everything flows easily, nothing jars.

Narcissus is Back was included in both versions of the album. Nuit 17 à 52 was included in the French version, and it was translated for the English version as Night 52. No Harm Is Done (featuring Tunji Ige) is only found in the English version. It was a minor hit in France.

Her next single was Jonathan (featuring Perfume Genius). It was a minor hit in France and Belgium. Perfume Genius is another great new musician, as well as an out gay man, whom we'll be discussing as soon as we return to English-speaking contemporary acts. Jonathan is a lovely song.

The title track, Chaleur Humaine, is a song against the social shaming of the naked body and of the healing power of human warmth.

Half Ladies is defiance in the face of abuse: “I’ve found a place of grace … every insult I hear back darkens into a beauty mark,” she sings, before another fantastic chorus – one on which her love of Michael Jackson shines through – sweeps the song along.

In 2015 she released an EP called Intranquillité (Unrest). Here's the title track:

Here she is with the great Nile Rodgers, singing the Disco classic We Are Family:

Her last offering, a non-album single, is called Here (featuring Booba):

It feels as if Christine and Letissier are at opposing ends of a spectrum, steadily inching towards each other. Letissier defines herself as the “weird cousin” in comparison with Pop’s hypersexualised female artists, but is annoyed at being defined as the more acceptable alternative. “People used to say in France: ‘Oh but you’re a good role model because you’re not Miley Cyrus.’ But I love Miley Cyrus. As a feminist it’s a shame because it’s always commenting on women’s bodies – what we should and shouldn’t wear. I don’t like that I’m a part of it. I’m not sexualising my body because it doesn’t fit with the character, but I love to see their bodies. I would enjoy my body if I looked like Miley.”

Do her friends call her Christine? “More and more, but I think if I was Christine all the time, the stage wouldn’t feel the same. When I get invited to parties I’ll think: ‘Oh I’ll go as Christine,’ and then I just get sweaty hands and I don’t know what to do with my body and I think: ‘Shit, I can’t do it.’” She laughs. “I feel like people aren’t going to believe me – but on stage I don’t have that worry. It feels like I’m blossoming.”

Héloïse Letissier, or Christine, we can't wait to see what your next move will be.