Zazie has never really had a reputation for mincing his words. And during his passage in Culture media on Europe 1, at the microphone of Thomas Isle, she once again proved that her outspokenness is not limited to her texts. Asked about her beginnings with Pascal Obispo, the one with whom she co-signed The Best Enemiesone of the emblematic duos of the 90s, she recounted a first meeting which was frankly nothing idyllic. “I found him very unpleasant, I found him very sure of himself“she blurts out without taking gloves. The kind of confidence that we perhaps didn’t expect from a now legendary duo.
This appearance on Europe 1 is part of a series of media appearances that Zazie has multiplied since the release of his new single Never mindon May 22. Three years after his album AIRthe 62-year-old artist who fully embraces his age is back with an electro-pop track with deceptive lightness, behind the dancing sounds, it is about jealousy and this mania that we all have to compare our lives to those of others. “If you envy the lives of others, others envy yours“she sums up with the economy of words that characterizes her. A new project is also expected for the start of the school year.
But it was the sequence on Obispo that caught the attention. The artist who also spoke about the affair Patrick Bruel returns to this first failed contact with Pascal Obispo with disarming honesty and takes care to immediately qualify: “It didn’t go very well, and then after a while there was someone from the record company. I said to myself maybe that uneasiness or shyness can sometimes cause that in people too.” A way of saying thatFirst impressions, even the worst, are sometimes worth reconsidering. And in the case of the performer of the song “Fan†, this reconsideration led to something quite beautiful.
From distrust to bars of laughter
We know the rest, or rather, we didn’t really know it before this confidence. The two artists ended up finding common ground, then a real complicity. “Bars of laughter upon bars of laughter!”enthuses Zazie, who today is full of praise for the man she describes as a “exceptional melodist”. It’s difficult to get further from the portrait she painted at the start.
Their collaboration did not stop at Best Enemies. Ensemble, they notably signed Zen et participé à l’écriture d’Light the fire for Johnny Hallyday, one of the best-known titles in the Taulier repertoire. Joint creations which have nourished an artistic and personal relationship which has lasted for more than thirty years, and which does not seem to be running out of steam.
Zazie and Pascal Obispo: a joint album one day?
What is intriguing is the door ajar on a possible joint project. Zazie and Obispo regularly discuss new musical ideas and the idea of a four-handed album is, it seems, not completely ruled out on either side. Nothing official yetbut when we know their ability to produce titles that span the decades, the hypothesis is a dream. In the meantime, it’s with Never mind that Zazie occupies the field this summer and returns to the forefront of the musical scene before an album planned for the fall. Enough to remind us, if necessary, that this author-composer-performer with her own style has not said her last word. And that his confidences are often worth as much as his songs.
