If you have not yet made her acquaintance, you are about to: Her second album under the name Christine and the Queens takes her alter ego a step further with a bolder, more androgynous iteration named Chris. “The first album was born out of the frustration of being an aberration in society, because I was a young queer woman,” she says. “The second was really born out of the aberration I was becoming, which was a powerful woman—being lustful and horny and sometimes angry, and craving for this will to just own everything a bit more and apologize a bit less.”
While the new album, also named Chris, undoubtedly works as an exploration of identity and sexuality and power—and as self-aware performance art worthy of touchstones like David Bowie and Laurie Anderson—it is also a supremely danceable collection of synth-pop confections that never gets overwhelmed by its messages. “Doesn’t matter” makes something as heavy as questioning the existence of God feel weightless; “Girlfriend,” featuring LA producer/DJ Dâm-Funk, likewise aims for both the hips and the head. “I don’t feel like a girlfriend, but I’ll be your lover,” she says. “The song is basically me trying to steal a bit from the patriarchy. It’s purely empowering out of defiance and wittiness.”
That flair for the dramatic comes naturally to Letissier. “I wanted to be a stage director before I became a pop performer, and writing a record is kind of like staging a huge play in my head,” she says. “This is a mysterious job I have.”
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/chris/1403389214?app=music