All of my K3 posts combined haven’t equaled the online hits to my single mention of Alizée three months ago. Five years ago, Alizée had a mega hit with “J’en ai Marre!” or, in English, “I’m Fed Up!” Is it French vs. Flemish that makes Alizée so popular compared to K3, or is it the way she dishes up sex so shamelessly, yet sweetly? And what is the significance of the cute sailor’s collar and the fanny fish?
I haven’t done a lot of background reading about Alizée, and I’ve watched only a few videos of her doing other songs, but I have to say that Alizée in “J’en ai Marre!” is unforgettable if not sensational, and the song itself is an excellent piece of pop penmanship and production. This performance in French is from Top of the Pops.
K3 found success in going for the kid’s market, and Alizée also took a crack at it, albeit in a more modest costume.
[flv:http://s3.amazonaws.com/dogratcom/Video/K3/AlizeeDisney.flv 480 360]
And if you’re thinking the song would be better in English, here’s another appearance from Top of the Pops.
[flv:http://s3.amazonaws.com/dogratcom/Video/K3/AlizeeEnglish.flv 480 360]
I think it loses a lot in English, so it’s just as well that’s an abbreviated take of the song. The charm just isn’t the same, leading me to wonder if K3’s appeal for me as an American would suffer if their songs were in English?
The introduction to this live performance of “J’en ai Marre!” demonstrates how effectively a simple, well-constructed song can pull in an audience.
Welcome, K3 listener! Thanks for the comment. My first reaction to K3, six months ago, was to consider them to be mere product for das kinder, and I even speculated on an English speaking group with different women.
But I quickly realized, and pointed out, that K3 isn’t just three girls singing catchy songs, wearing cute costumes and dancing. Karen, Kristel and Kathleen are the reason for their success. The girls of Wir3 just aren’t the same.
And now it seems that even while Studio 100 was promoting K3’s tenth anniversary, they posted an audition video in September for UK3, then found a few girls they liked, and rushed out a video. As usual, the image proportions on YouTube are wrong, so I’ve downloaded them and I will do a quick post about this interesting turn of events.
Thanks again for the comment and the tip-off.
I think the probability that K3’s songs would be not as good in another language is relatively high. I mean, just take the German Wir3 as an example. Essentially they make the same songs but by far not as good as K3. I like K3 better although I would understand the German texts better as I am a native German speaker.
But it could also be that this has other reasons as well, that Karen, Kristel and Kathleen are just better than Vera, Lina and Linda ;).
Btw. I have even found an English version of Heyah mama on YouTube, but not by K3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXVNtIUWurA
In my opinion this is even worse than the German version.