Christine and the Queens released the most ambitious album of their career in 2023, just over a year ago. ‘Paranoïa, Angels, True Love’ expanded on the story of Héloïse Letissier’s previous album, ‘Redcar les adorables étoiles’; released first but actually recorded later; it was based on the story of Tony Kushner’s play ‘Angels in America’, was divided into three CDs and featured Madonna on three tracks.
Far from the commercial achievements of her debut, ‘Chaleur humaine’, which managed to sell half a million copies in France a decade ago, ‘Paranoïa, Angels, True Love’ did manage to be a rich and fascinating work to discover with listening, one of the clear best albums of last year.
Unexpectedly, ‘Paranoia, Angels, True Love’ has just given Christine and the Queens a small but notable triumph. Track number 5, ‘Full of life’, has been used in an Amazon advert; the public is discovering Christine and the Queens thanks to the song and the help of Shazam, and ‘Full of life’ has quickly become one of Letissier’s most popular songs on Spotify. It is currently in second place, only behind ‘Tilted’.
The numbers for ‘Full of life’ are not spectacular and its commercial use has not translated into an appearance of ‘Full of life’ on the streaming or national charts, in France or anywhere else. But the data from Shazam is striking: ‘Full of life’ is currently the 2nd most searched song on this platform in the United Kingdom, the 4th in Ireland, the 7th in Italy, the 27th in Spain and the 30th in Germany. Not surprising: put on Youtube and you will surely see the ad.
It’s not a huge impact, but Amazon’s announcement has helped ‘Full of life’ to amass more than three and a half million plays on Spotify, surpassing the number of plays of two songs from ‘Paranoïa, Angels, True Love’ that were singles, ‘True love’ with 070 Shake and ‘Tears can be so soft’. Its sample of Pachelbel’s ‘Canon in D major’ has certainly had something to do with its popularity, but above all we have to celebrate that ‘Full of life’ has slightly resurrected that great album that was – and still is – ‘Paranoïa, Angels, True Love’. We have to count the successes, no matter how small they are.
