Mylène Farmer

Mylene Gautier was born on September the 12th 1961 at Pierrefonds; city located around 20km away from Montreal. She is the youngest of 4 kids; her father (max Gautier) is an engineer at the department of Civil Engineering and worked on the Manicouagan dam construction site. Her mother (Marguerite Martin) was a housewife. Surrounded by her brothers and sisters, she was living in wealthy conditions.

She is used to saying that she only has a few memories of her childhood, mostly from the snow and the maple syrup she used to eat. She was already very found of animals and thought about becoming a veterinarian. She did not make waves at school; she was a distant and shy student. In the early 70’s, the family moved back to France, in the city of Ville d’Avray, which will be traumatic to Mylene.

Isolated in the grey environment of the Parisian suburbs, she had been missing her more cheerful Canada. Mylene often went to the Hospital at Garches to visit sick children. It seemed to comfort her. She then attended the horse ridding classes at the Cadre Noir at Saumur.

Then at 18 years old, on September 14th 1979, she left high school two days after having started studying humanities. Mylene decided then to start an artistic career. She would start by theater and enrolled at the famous Cours Florent and attended Daniel Mesquish (comedian) classes. She played the role of Zezette directed by her friend Thierry Mugler in the comedy “Le pere noel est une ordure” (Santa Claus is a bastard).

She made pocket money out of temporary jobs as dentist or gynecologist assistant. She also tried herself being a model or playing in advertising campaigns (IKEA, Fiskars scissors, Le Chat soap or even the lottery). At the same time, she built up her literature knowledge, reading Allan Edgar Poe fantastic stories and Baudelaire poetry. It was at this time that she met one of the most important person for her career: Laurent Boutonnat.

As a Pygmalion and for many years, he distributed and composed her music and video clips. In 1984, they recorded her very first song “Maman a tort” (my mum is wrong), a childish song that met a quite honorable success. This was when she abandoned her name to become Mylene Farmer, from the actress Frances Farmer. The latter died in a lunatic hospital because of her addiction to alcohol.

She released her song “Libertine” and her first album “Cendres de Lune” (ashes from the moon), which will be her first big hit. In 1988, she released her second album “Ainsi soit-je” (So be I) which was rewarded for being sold by more that 1 800 000 copies. The song “Pourvu qu’elles soient douces” (Be they sweet) was an extract from this album. Its video clip amazed the French audience and more than 10 000 copies of the song were sold each day in December 1988!

Thanks to this video clip, she got the French music award “Victoires de la musique”. She started then a tour around France, 80 shows et sold all the tickets for her Parisian shows in 48 hours! A live album had been recorded. After resting for a couple of months, Mylene Farmer released the famous single “Desenchantee” (disillusioned) before selling more than 2 millions copies of her album “L’autre” (the other). 4 songs were released from this album and then after, Luc Besson was asked to produce the video clip « que mon cœur lache » (My soul is slashed), before her first best off was released.

She would get for this video clip a new award. She had been working on her first movie for months, directed by Laurent Boutonnat and entitled “Giorgino. It was played from the 5th of October 1994 but was not successful. This was the team’s first failure.

She would then retreat for a long period of time to think about all of this and then recorded her fourth album in California. She made a change in her image and in her music. “Anamorphosee” is released in October 1995 and became the most surprising album of her career with a new rock style sound. This album sold at more than 1 million of copies; many singles were extracted including the hymn for love “XXL”. She toured for the second time and her 3 shows at Paris were completely sold out.

For the first time in France, her live album was sold at more than 900.000 copies, a record in France! She sang along with Khaled the Polnareff’s song “La poupee qui fait non” (The doll that nodds no). Mylene Farmer went back to California with Laurent Boutonnat to produce her fifth album with which she made many surprises to her fans. A new Mylene Farmer returned, more colourful than ever, in a video clip produced by Ching Siu Tung for the song “Ame-stram-gram”.

A new scandal is made when she released her video clip for the song “Je te rends ton amour” ( I give your love back). The video clip is censored, for the second time in a career after her song “Beyond my control”. She decided then to release the tape of her video clip and give all benefits to a charity supporting the fight against aids. She toured then all around France, all shows are sold out and she even performed in Russia.

She made the song cover “L’histoire d’une fee, c’est” (A Fairy tale is) for the «Razmoket in Paris » movie (Rugrats) and it was released in february 2001. She made then a duet with Seal, an extract from her best of “Les mots” (The words), released on November 27th 2001 which includes 3 new songs: “Les mots”, “C’est une belle journee” and “Pardonne-moi” (The words, It is a beautiful day and Forgive me). She would then get for the 4th time the Nrj Music Award for the best French female singer in 2003. While her fans are waiting for a new album, she offered an albums of remixes from her songs made by the most prestigious DJs in the World.

It was only in april 2005 when she offered her 6th music album to her fans « Avant que l’ombre »(before the shadows…) from which will be extracted the songs Fuck them all, QI, Redonne-moi, L’amour n’est rien, Peut-etre toi ( Fuck them all, IQ, Give me back, Love means nothing, Maybe it’s you). It was sold by around 500 000 copies around France. She then did 13 sold out shows only in Paris. She released the video from this concert on DVD which became the most sold DVD in France.

Her only hit at this time was “slipping away”, a duet with Moby, none of her singles reached such success. Year 2006 in details, months by months- It was a beautiful year (in french) 2007 is a year of silence. The only comfort for her fans is the releasing of the DVD of “Girogino” from the first time. Year 2007 in details, months by months-Shadow and Silence (in french) In june 2008, Mylene sang “faut qu’ca bouge” (You gotta move it) and it moves!

Her two shows in Paris at the French stadium got sold out in less of 3 hours. A record! A day later, 100 000 tickets for her shows were sold in only one day. Her fist single “Degeneration” became her 5th number 1 in the French charts.

A few months later, “Appelle mon numero” becomes her 6th number 1 single. She is the only artist to have got 6 songs number 1. On august 20th, her seventh album, "Point de Suture" was released and reached as well number one.