The titles of Jeanne Added’s first two albums sounded like injunctions: Be Sensational (“be sensational”), Radiate (“radiate”). Watchwords addressed less to the listeners than to herself, so strong was her need to assert herself, to forge a new artistic entity after a first life devoted to jazz interpretation. A determination coupled with doubt and anxiety, which made this 30-something with peroxidized hair, an intense and solitary warrior.
Third chapter of his pop discography, By Your Side (“by your side”) says this time its openness to sharing. As if, reassured by having imposed her haughty austerity, Jeanne the fighter could drop her armor a little, soften her grooves, illuminate her choruses, warm up her melodies with more smiles and tenderness, without giving up her dark side. . Like a title song concluding the disc with the loving serenity of someone who has learned to have confidence in herself and in the other. « Finally, having faith in you simply because/By your side, I truly am » (“finally having faith in you, just because by your side, I really am”).
« Be Sensational et Radiate were dictated by urgency and necessity,” confirms Jeanne Added in a café in 10e district, close to her home. “At this point in my career, I had to ‘make an impact’, ‘radiate’ or release”, she adds, this October 4, treating an irritated throat with hot lemon juice. A bad cold snap, three days before the resumption of his new tour.
In the 2000s, this daughter of a theater director, born in Reims in 1980, had multiplied her experiences within an avant-garde jazz environment, in the wake of cello studies and singing at the National Conservatory of Paris and a stint at the prestigious Royal Academy of Music in London. Also a fan of Bérurier noir, Nirvana, Jeff Buckley or Portishead, the performer got closer to rock at the end of the 2000s, when the rage to write his own songs burned.
To find one’s way
Frustrations, inner anger, feeling of incommunicability in a world dominated by machismo feed the inspiration of his first records. First in a post-punk mode – Be Sensationalin 2015 –, then coated with an electronic shroud – Radiate, in 2018 – both capable of weakening into overwhelming melodies. In 2019, two Victoires de la musique come to consecrate critical and public success. A recognition which, if it has calmed certain anxieties, has aroused others.
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