Post by davidhr on May 17, 2009 16:40:22 GMT -5
The big push for Lara’s new album has now started, and this past week there were some notable developments. Of chief interest for this forum is that Lara gave an interview for Téléstar in which she indicated that the English version of TLFM, called “EWIM – Every Woman in Me” has already been recorded! It has songs on it originally recorded by Barbra Streisand, Ella Fitzgerald, Ornella Vanoni, Joni Mitchell, Karen Carpenter...". Apparently it will not be out immediately, because Lara said she will not wait for it to appear to start singing songs from it – they will be included in her upcoming tour of 40 dates. In fact, the article mentioned that three albums have already been recorded; although the third one is not specified, it could be either the Italian version of TLFM (most probable since Lara mentioned it in her “Al dente” interview several months ago), or just possibly a new album of original songs (see Lara’s response in another interview, below). It also may be that the release of these other records may depend on how well this one sells.
Lara also confirmed she will be in “Victor Victoria” for 6 months starting October 2010. One would imagine that it would be hard to promote a new album during that time – which suggests these additional albums might be released next spring. A small picture of the article is available at:
clipping.pressindex.com/Archives/2009/5/18/3000/2076/1703/TlStarN1703/TlStarN1703-Page27_tnl.jpg
Lara gave an interview in TV Grandes Chaines. Here’s the translation:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What did you do these last three years?
I’ve played mother, taken the time to live and to love. I equally wrote a lot of songs!
Then why return with an album of reprises?
The new songs will be the object of an album very soon. I wanted to render homage to these 13 feminine artists who have been of major importance for me.
Why did you record this album two times?
I had made these same titles but with arrangements, say, more sophisticated. Pascal Negre, at Universal, my record company, rendered me a great service. He said to me, “This is very beautiful, but where is my Lara who sings?” Unconsciously, I used my voice as an instrument, but I hid it.
The media manhandled you. Does that still haunt you?
It was violent. I had a hard time of it. I was stunned to discover that one wanted to demolish me for that which one had acclaimed me. My voice, this is a gift and this is me. The fact of having to put on the shelf this first recording of TLFM allowed me to turn the page. Suddenly, this disk became very solar. It gives the desire to dance. This is my renaissance.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is the clearest indication yet of Lara’s return to being the “Singer of voice”. We know she was scared off by the French critics, and some of them still exist. There is also a significant portion of her fan base that bemoans the fact that she redid TLFM, and clearly prefer Lara’s softer singing from her last several French albums (starting with ETI). It is no coincidence that the same people generally also do not want an album of reprises, for new, original songs are then the only thing that separates Lara from other singers. However, as Lara indicates, she has now been given the courage to regain her own, inimitable form, and people who have heard the full album indicate that it truly marks her return to using her full voice. We will see whether this results in the return of her record sales, something one guesses Pascal Negre had in mind with his comments.
Universal Records is apparently going all out for this album. Laetitia said on the official site that the promotion, including TV, radio and the press, will be intense. So far 9 additional TV shows are scheduled and 4 radio appearances. More may well be planned; the French portion of the promotion (as opposed to the Belgian) is currently relatively light. There are so far 34 concert dates known, including apparently 5 in Russia, and perhaps a free concert in Nimes (where she is scheduled to appear June 8th as part of a joint France Bleu/FNAC promotion for her album). In addition, Universal has included the following promo interview of Lara on their web site
www.universalmusic.fr/artiste/lara--fabian/
It is beautifully written, so a translation is provided below:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“The heritage of Love…this could also have well served as the title of the new album so long awaited from Lara Fabian. For love is evidently the question in all the songs offered here. But love, this is also and especially what is offered by the singer to those who created these songs. An infinite love, respectful, recognizing. Here it is, the heritage. A means for Lara to render homage, sincere and vibrant, to all the artists who have accompanied her during her journey, as much personal as artistic. All the women who have permitted her to be that which she is today, who have given her the desire to live, to love and to sing.
“All the women in me” is therefore the title of the new album of Lara Fabian. A record which puts together, without doubt for the first time, artists as different as Dalida, Barbara, Edith Paif, Nana Mouskouri, Diane Dufresne, Nicolette, Nicole Croisille or Veronique Sanson. But don’t see it as just another compilation of reprises, or a collection of hits of women. Rather a disk of reverence, tenderness and affectionate, like a letter of thanks, a message of love and of gratitude.
“The idea was born during a conversation with my best friend, recounts Lara. We spoke of all that which makes a human being become what he is, beyond genetics or education. Of those small parcels brought by those who love us, educate us, enrich us. I saw that the red line of my life had been woven by women, not all known, but all ferrymen who have helped me to build myself. “
The choice of songs is not made by chance. Each of the dozen melodies which dot this disk correspond to a trigger, a stage, an emotion, which has punctuated Lara’s life. From “Mamy Blue” the first refrain hummed at the age of 8 months, to “Amoureuse”, which had inspired her first composition, while passing by “Soleil, soleil”, moving memory of the first show that she attended. “It is the account of a part of my existence”, confides Lara, “of my birth until my appearance in the musical world. All these women permitted me to maintain hope, even when it was difficult, a little like a candle in the dark. I wanted to recount the love that I carried for them, at which point they had been important for me”.
When one ticks off before her the “cast” of the disk, Lara becomes impassioned, issuing a word for each of the artists who compose it. Veronique Sanson? “She is for me an example of the writer. Thanks to her, that through the poetry of words, one could express profound sentiments without being immodest. Before her, I felt myself like a child…” Maurane? “She is an exceptional woman, because she is herself, without compromise. At her side I have learned resilience, to liberate myself from being full of things, to learn that it is not so serious to not always be on top” Dalida? Her life moved me, this solitude that I read in her glance and then especially this modernity, all that which she invented and therefore one is inspired by afterwards, this method of always being impeccable, the beautiful hair, the beautiful dresses, she made one dream. But like many stars, alone up there, hung up in a dark sky…”Barbra from whom she takes the magnificent “Gottingen” “A charismatic being, a brilliant author who should have received the Nobel Peace Price for her messages of pardon….” Piaf and her “Hymne a l’amour”? “Violence like a curse, but also a means of survival. An instinct for life profoundly animal, without which she would have left a lot more quickly…”And Celine Dion, of course, “The absolute first vocal inspiration, of whom I am marked with the same scars, the same loves, the same leaning towards the American market, and who has taught me to stretch towards a form of perfection. She is the Olympic champion of vocal dexterity, technical mastery”.
Anecdotes are done also. Of unforgettable memories, like the time when Nana Mouskouri made her get up on stage, a small girl eight years of age cramped up in a brown velour dress, before, many years later, asking her to be present at her farewell concert, in
Athens. Comical, like this tape recorder error during a television broadcast in the company of Catherine Lara, who, far from taking offence, had comforted and reassured the terrorized debutante. Or moving, like this brief meeting with Francoise Hardy, who, in some words, had known to give her back her confidence in a painful period of doubt.
Personal messages, therefore, that these songs of love shared. Timeless and contemporary at once, for Lara wanted to offer them a harmonic screen of today. A sort of gospel music more urban, more lyric and more sensual, fashioned by innovative arrangements of Simon Climie (producer, among others, of Eric Clapton), and sometimes crossed with a choir of forty voices.
“My musical references have always been very soul or r’n’b, confides Lara. I wanted the production of this album to reflect this duality, at once the personality and watermark of all these women, and in parallel, all this music that I have so loved. But I am only a vehicle, my voice is only the instrument of my immense gratitude.”
.
To each artist who inspired her, Lara Fabian has written a letter, all reproduced in the booklet of the album. She has also composed the original title song, “TLFM” (“Toutes les femmes en moi”), like a resume of the album, an ode to universal femininity, which begins thus “All here is below the flight of a round stomach full of life that goes…” All the women in her, Lara Fabian has succeed in gathering them in this moving disk, which will know perhaps a following English one. A magnificent homage to all those who have contributed to making her that which she is today: a unique artist.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The songs and their times are now available, at www.last.fm/music/Lara+Fabian/Toutes+Les+Femmes+en+Moi [To go to this site, one needs to copy the URL and paste it into the web browser.]
1. Soleil Soleil (3:57)
2. J'ai Douze Ans (4:40)
3. Amoureuse (4:30)
4. Gottingen (5:37)
5. Il Venait D'Avoir 18 Ans (3:18)
6. Mamy Blue (3:56)
7. Une Femme Avec Toi (4:15)
8. Ca Casse (3:53)
9. L'amour Existe Encore (3:48)
10. Message Personnel (5:01)
11. TLFM (Toutes Les Femmes En Moi) (4:04)
12. Nuit Magique (3:16)
13. L'hymne a l'amour (6:06)
14. Babacar (3:32)
© Universal Music S.A. (2009)
Released: 25 May 2009
14 tracks (59:53)
Several stores have indicated that an earlier release is planned (Virgin, FNAC) where release as early as the 22nd is indicated. There is also a rumor that it will be available on iTunes as early as the 18th. The iTunes issue is also important because it has been suggested (by Lara herself) that the 14th track will not be on the CD itself (at least not the general release) but will be available on iTunes. You may know that it is extremely difficult to buy iTunes songs from another country – not only do you have to be able to access the site but you must have a credit card and residence in that country. While iTunes in the US carries Lara’s latest records, there is no guarantee what they will make available from this one.
Lara was featured in an interview in “Une de cinétélérevue”, a Belgian publication. Scans of the article were put on the official site by Larasev. At
www.larafabian.com/forumLara/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=8839&sid=0eb3e76f4b37b9b585967354c339fccb
Included were pictures of Lara, some from previous decades, and some very interesting pictures of Lara in unusual dress with unusual makeup. It was suggested by tmaj00 that Lara was attempting to dress and appear like some of the singers she uses in TLFM; and that perhaps these pictures are actually from the album. Lara also apparently has a long interview in the June issue of ‘Platine’, due out on the 8th of the month. The interviewers apparently were quite complimentary towards her, saying (as they’ve done in the past), that she did not evade any question, no matter how rough it got, and proved herself, once again, an artist and a truly respected and admired woman.
Lara also appeared in several TV broadcasts this week that are available on Youtube. In one, on ‘Access prive’, she meets with Catherine Lara, and one hears a brief alluring segment of “Nuit Magique” from Lara’s album in the background. Lara was also on the program “Les 12 travaux de Justine Henin”, where she showed up to surprise her friend (who was the co-host of the program dedicated to Lara, one of the 12 of Justine's 'works', to be broadcast on the 21st in Belgium).
However busy this past week was, it pales in comparison to what we can expect the next few weeks. Be prepared for a lot of material to appear on Youtube and (hopefully) NABBOX, and, 8 days from today, the new album is released. It’s been a long wait, but it’s just about over.
David
Lara also confirmed she will be in “Victor Victoria” for 6 months starting October 2010. One would imagine that it would be hard to promote a new album during that time – which suggests these additional albums might be released next spring. A small picture of the article is available at:
clipping.pressindex.com/Archives/2009/5/18/3000/2076/1703/TlStarN1703/TlStarN1703-Page27_tnl.jpg
Lara gave an interview in TV Grandes Chaines. Here’s the translation:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What did you do these last three years?
I’ve played mother, taken the time to live and to love. I equally wrote a lot of songs!
Then why return with an album of reprises?
The new songs will be the object of an album very soon. I wanted to render homage to these 13 feminine artists who have been of major importance for me.
Why did you record this album two times?
I had made these same titles but with arrangements, say, more sophisticated. Pascal Negre, at Universal, my record company, rendered me a great service. He said to me, “This is very beautiful, but where is my Lara who sings?” Unconsciously, I used my voice as an instrument, but I hid it.
The media manhandled you. Does that still haunt you?
It was violent. I had a hard time of it. I was stunned to discover that one wanted to demolish me for that which one had acclaimed me. My voice, this is a gift and this is me. The fact of having to put on the shelf this first recording of TLFM allowed me to turn the page. Suddenly, this disk became very solar. It gives the desire to dance. This is my renaissance.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is the clearest indication yet of Lara’s return to being the “Singer of voice”. We know she was scared off by the French critics, and some of them still exist. There is also a significant portion of her fan base that bemoans the fact that she redid TLFM, and clearly prefer Lara’s softer singing from her last several French albums (starting with ETI). It is no coincidence that the same people generally also do not want an album of reprises, for new, original songs are then the only thing that separates Lara from other singers. However, as Lara indicates, she has now been given the courage to regain her own, inimitable form, and people who have heard the full album indicate that it truly marks her return to using her full voice. We will see whether this results in the return of her record sales, something one guesses Pascal Negre had in mind with his comments.
Universal Records is apparently going all out for this album. Laetitia said on the official site that the promotion, including TV, radio and the press, will be intense. So far 9 additional TV shows are scheduled and 4 radio appearances. More may well be planned; the French portion of the promotion (as opposed to the Belgian) is currently relatively light. There are so far 34 concert dates known, including apparently 5 in Russia, and perhaps a free concert in Nimes (where she is scheduled to appear June 8th as part of a joint France Bleu/FNAC promotion for her album). In addition, Universal has included the following promo interview of Lara on their web site
www.universalmusic.fr/artiste/lara--fabian/
It is beautifully written, so a translation is provided below:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“The heritage of Love…this could also have well served as the title of the new album so long awaited from Lara Fabian. For love is evidently the question in all the songs offered here. But love, this is also and especially what is offered by the singer to those who created these songs. An infinite love, respectful, recognizing. Here it is, the heritage. A means for Lara to render homage, sincere and vibrant, to all the artists who have accompanied her during her journey, as much personal as artistic. All the women who have permitted her to be that which she is today, who have given her the desire to live, to love and to sing.
“All the women in me” is therefore the title of the new album of Lara Fabian. A record which puts together, without doubt for the first time, artists as different as Dalida, Barbara, Edith Paif, Nana Mouskouri, Diane Dufresne, Nicolette, Nicole Croisille or Veronique Sanson. But don’t see it as just another compilation of reprises, or a collection of hits of women. Rather a disk of reverence, tenderness and affectionate, like a letter of thanks, a message of love and of gratitude.
“The idea was born during a conversation with my best friend, recounts Lara. We spoke of all that which makes a human being become what he is, beyond genetics or education. Of those small parcels brought by those who love us, educate us, enrich us. I saw that the red line of my life had been woven by women, not all known, but all ferrymen who have helped me to build myself. “
The choice of songs is not made by chance. Each of the dozen melodies which dot this disk correspond to a trigger, a stage, an emotion, which has punctuated Lara’s life. From “Mamy Blue” the first refrain hummed at the age of 8 months, to “Amoureuse”, which had inspired her first composition, while passing by “Soleil, soleil”, moving memory of the first show that she attended. “It is the account of a part of my existence”, confides Lara, “of my birth until my appearance in the musical world. All these women permitted me to maintain hope, even when it was difficult, a little like a candle in the dark. I wanted to recount the love that I carried for them, at which point they had been important for me”.
When one ticks off before her the “cast” of the disk, Lara becomes impassioned, issuing a word for each of the artists who compose it. Veronique Sanson? “She is for me an example of the writer. Thanks to her, that through the poetry of words, one could express profound sentiments without being immodest. Before her, I felt myself like a child…” Maurane? “She is an exceptional woman, because she is herself, without compromise. At her side I have learned resilience, to liberate myself from being full of things, to learn that it is not so serious to not always be on top” Dalida? Her life moved me, this solitude that I read in her glance and then especially this modernity, all that which she invented and therefore one is inspired by afterwards, this method of always being impeccable, the beautiful hair, the beautiful dresses, she made one dream. But like many stars, alone up there, hung up in a dark sky…”Barbra from whom she takes the magnificent “Gottingen” “A charismatic being, a brilliant author who should have received the Nobel Peace Price for her messages of pardon….” Piaf and her “Hymne a l’amour”? “Violence like a curse, but also a means of survival. An instinct for life profoundly animal, without which she would have left a lot more quickly…”And Celine Dion, of course, “The absolute first vocal inspiration, of whom I am marked with the same scars, the same loves, the same leaning towards the American market, and who has taught me to stretch towards a form of perfection. She is the Olympic champion of vocal dexterity, technical mastery”.
Anecdotes are done also. Of unforgettable memories, like the time when Nana Mouskouri made her get up on stage, a small girl eight years of age cramped up in a brown velour dress, before, many years later, asking her to be present at her farewell concert, in
Athens. Comical, like this tape recorder error during a television broadcast in the company of Catherine Lara, who, far from taking offence, had comforted and reassured the terrorized debutante. Or moving, like this brief meeting with Francoise Hardy, who, in some words, had known to give her back her confidence in a painful period of doubt.
Personal messages, therefore, that these songs of love shared. Timeless and contemporary at once, for Lara wanted to offer them a harmonic screen of today. A sort of gospel music more urban, more lyric and more sensual, fashioned by innovative arrangements of Simon Climie (producer, among others, of Eric Clapton), and sometimes crossed with a choir of forty voices.
“My musical references have always been very soul or r’n’b, confides Lara. I wanted the production of this album to reflect this duality, at once the personality and watermark of all these women, and in parallel, all this music that I have so loved. But I am only a vehicle, my voice is only the instrument of my immense gratitude.”
.
To each artist who inspired her, Lara Fabian has written a letter, all reproduced in the booklet of the album. She has also composed the original title song, “TLFM” (“Toutes les femmes en moi”), like a resume of the album, an ode to universal femininity, which begins thus “All here is below the flight of a round stomach full of life that goes…” All the women in her, Lara Fabian has succeed in gathering them in this moving disk, which will know perhaps a following English one. A magnificent homage to all those who have contributed to making her that which she is today: a unique artist.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The songs and their times are now available, at www.last.fm/music/Lara+Fabian/Toutes+Les+Femmes+en+Moi [To go to this site, one needs to copy the URL and paste it into the web browser.]
1. Soleil Soleil (3:57)
2. J'ai Douze Ans (4:40)
3. Amoureuse (4:30)
4. Gottingen (5:37)
5. Il Venait D'Avoir 18 Ans (3:18)
6. Mamy Blue (3:56)
7. Une Femme Avec Toi (4:15)
8. Ca Casse (3:53)
9. L'amour Existe Encore (3:48)
10. Message Personnel (5:01)
11. TLFM (Toutes Les Femmes En Moi) (4:04)
12. Nuit Magique (3:16)
13. L'hymne a l'amour (6:06)
14. Babacar (3:32)
© Universal Music S.A. (2009)
Released: 25 May 2009
14 tracks (59:53)
Several stores have indicated that an earlier release is planned (Virgin, FNAC) where release as early as the 22nd is indicated. There is also a rumor that it will be available on iTunes as early as the 18th. The iTunes issue is also important because it has been suggested (by Lara herself) that the 14th track will not be on the CD itself (at least not the general release) but will be available on iTunes. You may know that it is extremely difficult to buy iTunes songs from another country – not only do you have to be able to access the site but you must have a credit card and residence in that country. While iTunes in the US carries Lara’s latest records, there is no guarantee what they will make available from this one.
Lara was featured in an interview in “Une de cinétélérevue”, a Belgian publication. Scans of the article were put on the official site by Larasev. At
www.larafabian.com/forumLara/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=8839&sid=0eb3e76f4b37b9b585967354c339fccb
Included were pictures of Lara, some from previous decades, and some very interesting pictures of Lara in unusual dress with unusual makeup. It was suggested by tmaj00 that Lara was attempting to dress and appear like some of the singers she uses in TLFM; and that perhaps these pictures are actually from the album. Lara also apparently has a long interview in the June issue of ‘Platine’, due out on the 8th of the month. The interviewers apparently were quite complimentary towards her, saying (as they’ve done in the past), that she did not evade any question, no matter how rough it got, and proved herself, once again, an artist and a truly respected and admired woman.
Lara also appeared in several TV broadcasts this week that are available on Youtube. In one, on ‘Access prive’, she meets with Catherine Lara, and one hears a brief alluring segment of “Nuit Magique” from Lara’s album in the background. Lara was also on the program “Les 12 travaux de Justine Henin”, where she showed up to surprise her friend (who was the co-host of the program dedicated to Lara, one of the 12 of Justine's 'works', to be broadcast on the 21st in Belgium).
However busy this past week was, it pales in comparison to what we can expect the next few weeks. Be prepared for a lot of material to appear on Youtube and (hopefully) NABBOX, and, 8 days from today, the new album is released. It’s been a long wait, but it’s just about over.
David