Quent91
Well-known member
^It's actually André Bouchet, aka Passe-Partout, and not Passe-Muraille 
France FRANCE 2016 - Amir - J'ai cherché
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^It's actually André Bouchet, aka Passe-Partout, and not Passe-Muraille
Ah, merci! Anyway, I'm looking forward to seeing the show - I've never watched it before (we had our own version here in Canada for a couple of years) so it will be my first time. It must be a really amazing series
Dutchball
Active member
Too bad Elodie Gossuin (our spokesperson) wasn't part of the team
why don't you send her next year? . 
The 27th season premiere of Fort Boyard will feature Amir and his teammates Valérie Damidot, Flora Coquerel, Pascal Soetens, Jean-Luc Lemoine and Phil Auriel (shown in the photo with host Olivier Minne and Anthony Laborde, aka Passe-Muraille). It will air Saturday, July 2 at 20:55 CET on France 2 (live stream link)
Marked in my diary! I have a French listening test coming up, might as well practice my skills... I tried to follow "Qui est la Taupe?" which went quite okay.
Today during the Fête de la Musique concert in Toulouse, Amir was officially presented his gold record for Au coeur de moi!
Additionally, "J'ai cherché" has been streamed over 35 million times worldwide and is currently #3 on the Francophone radio airplay chart here in Canada. Bravo Amir!
Additionally, "J'ai cherché" has been streamed over 35 million times worldwide and is currently #3 on the Francophone radio airplay chart here in Canada. Bravo Amir!
Passe-Partout still lives Wonder if the same can be said about the old bearded man up in the tower/lighthouse/whatever was that. Though I don't think he was really that old, rather loads of make-up at work, right 
Ah, Fort Boyard...brings me back to the careless days of childhood when I watched it on weekend afternoons with the family, eating all sorts of candy and then getting an anxious feeling on my stomach everytime those greedy French bastards made through the closing gate at the very last minute, avoiding to be attacked by the...tigers, I think it was tigers when I last watched it. But there were lions too for certain (but ofc they must have been heavily sedated and I remember once one contestant did not make it in time but nothing happened to him ofc, the handler just stood there with his whip taking care of the "kittens")
Wonder if the same can be said about the old bearded man up in the tower/lighthouse/whatever was that. Though I don't think he was really that old, rather loads of make-up at work, right Ah, Fort Boyard...brings me back to the careless days of childhood when I watched it on weekend afternoons with the family, eating all sorts of candy and then getting an anxious feeling on my stomach everytime those greedy French bastards made through the closing gate at the very last minute, avoiding to be attacked by the...tigers, I think it was tigers when I last watched it. But there were lions too for certain (but ofc they must have been heavily sedated and I remember once one contestant did not make it in time but nothing happened to him ofc, the handler just stood there with his whip taking care of the "kittens"
)
I was able to find the full version of Amir's Fort Boyard episode without a block - I tested the link and the video works perfectly. It was cool that he and his teammates used an improvised version of "J'ai cherché" as their team cheer!
Watch here in case you were unable to see it the first time around:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YrNQehd3aI
Watch here in case you were unable to see it the first time around:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YrNQehd3aI
It's time for me to review this year's French entry once again... Sorry for the delay but I currently don't have much time to dedicate to the remaining entries I haven't reviewed yet. Besides, my review about France was ready to be published on Thursday morning but the forum faced a major error and I lost everything... I wasn't sure about whether I would be brave enough to re-write everything or not. After a couple of days of reflection, I decided to re-start from scratch.
Amir - J'ai cherché
Status: No :?
Song: Members who know me a little bit know that I have never blindly supported my own country in Eurovision. Actually, it's rather the contrary, I've always been more critical about our entries because I don't think one should show more complacency to one's own nation - hence why I don't get some overly patriotic members here - but that's just my opinion. Our 2010's track record has not been good tbh, so I agree with most of our failures (same in the 2000's): I liked a couple of efforts (2009, 2011), I also recognised the quality of "L'Enfer Et Moi" (2013) that didn't deserve to bomb imo. Otherwise, I didn't like the rest (2010, 2014) and "N'oubliez Pas" - despite being decently composed - was too boring and dated to score big points in 2015. Frankly, our last great effort to date remains "Je N'ai Que Mon Âme (2001) to me. After last year's fiasco, our head of entertainment Nathalie André stated that she finally got the Eurovision spirit and that everything would change this year: it is the usual spiel we have every year but it seems that our broadcaster was really willing to get out of the bottom 5 this time. After weeks of weird teasing and an early announcement from a rival channel, it was revealed that ex-the Voice singer Amir would represent us with the song "J'ai Cherché". It is a feel-good electro-pop uptempo entry dealing with someone who suffered from not finding a meaning to their existence despite seeking one. But due to love (or faith), that person finally finds a place in this world. The lyrics are decent, even though the lyricists seem to have favoured rhymes over meaning sometimes (maybe that's just me being demanding here ). However, I do not approve of the chorus in English, which is lyrically flat and lazy; the objective was of course to create a catchy hook for the song, but I believe something less basic in French would have been better (yes, I am one of those who think France should stick to French). Regarding the music, the song starts off with a high-pitched electronic sound (probably coming from a synthesizer) while Amir quickly begins to sing the first verse - whose phrasings are rather fast-paced - accompanied by an acoustic guitar in the background and some piano chords punctuating the vocal melodic lines. Then the pre-chorus follows, a finger-snap-sounding beat is introduced and the phrasings are slower and slightly more spaced. That short part leads immediately to the chorus composed of a busier beat, a very noticeable synthesizer performing a new melodic part, and heavy backing voices who support the main gimmicks of the song. Actually, they are the gimmicks themselves as the chorus relies on a vocalized "you-ou" line and word repetition (I'll be looking looking looking for you), which are elements easy to remember but not really that interesting. To me, the chorus sounds repetitive and borderline annoying, and the fact it's repeated twice every time is reinforcing that feeling imo. The arrangements of the second verse are the same as for the first one, except the additional beat used to keep momentum relatively high; Amir's tone is also higher here compared with the beginning. Instead of the pre-chorus, the chorus starts again with stripped down arrangements before it gets back to normal. The bridge is quite short and unremarkable imo, and the chorus will be used until the song ends; Amir performs some high notes and vocal variations, but that's not enough to make up for the repetitiveness of it: there are definitely too many "you-ou" for me. Finally, our broadcaster sent a song that's actually in line with our current music scene (which is indeed an improvement) and it has been a wise decision as the song does well in our charts (our last entry to enjoy major success was "Je N'ai Que Mon Âme"), but the song isn't cup of tea, it's precisely what I don't like about our mainstream music nowadays: aseptic, simple and unambitious would be the adjectives I'd use to describe it. I feel like the verses' and bridge's existence is only an excuse for repeating ad nauseam the chorus that represents three quarters of the song. To sum up, while I think this is a step in the right direction (that effort was much less hopeless than our last efforts), this is not that great either imo.
Voice: First, I'd like to point out that the producers/arrangers were very heavy-handed with autotune in the studio version, mainly during choruses. The high notes were also computer-corrected and the very last note is just disgusting :? OMG I can't believe they kept it! Regarding the high notes, I don't understand why they included some while Amir is not able to reach them: if he has difficulties reaching them in studio, no wonder it won't sound good live. Thankfully, he gave up on singing them during his performance. He did a decent job imo, he succeeded in singing the verses - that didn't enable him to breathe much - and he of course mastered the chorus; but apart from vocals, I think he lacked energy and connection to the audience (unlike Laura Tesoro for instance) as well as charisma, he failed to "fill" the stage alone to me (unlike Gabriela or Poli Genova for instance).
Staging: Our head of entertainment Nathalie André said that our staging was too complex in 2015 (really?), so maybe that's why we got a emptier simpler presentation this year. The performance started with Amir standing alone at the center of the stage, surrounded by purple pools of lights, and a shooting star that exploded in the horizon before a blue outer space-looking starry sky appeared on the main backdrops. The floor progressively showed matching moving stars and triangles made of dots. Then several passing planets in a variety of colours filled the background, before the visuals became abstract during the chorus: some white lights surrounded the stage while the backdrops were displaying white moving lines and circles on shades of dark blue. During the second chorus, the LED floor looked like outer space with blue strobe lights. Through his gestures, Amir pretended to be lost in this scenery. My favourite part is the bridge when the moon (I guess) appears below him in a purple halo of light, it was nice to watch. Towards the end, Amir went to the b-stage (every act that wants to seem "close" to people do that). Personally, I found the visuals decent yet vanilla/basic, if someone still had a doubt about our chances of winning, it was very clear that we wouldn't with such a presentation. Amir was alone on stage but he looked stressed and slightly awkward, thus making the stage look empty imo. I didn't understand their outer space ideas as "J'ai Cherché" doesn't make me think of space at all. The visuals during the chorus were like a random Windows screensaver, the moving shapes indeed brought more dynamism but it wasn't very interesting to watch tbh. Even the colour scheme they opted for was not appropriate to me, blue and purple do go well together and such an uptempo feel-good song needed warm colours, there was a strange contrast between music and visuals. Amir wore casual clothes (to play the boy-next-door card, like Frans): a white shirt and dark jacket and trousers.
Outcome: France placed 6th out of 26 countries in the grand final, as juries ranked us 3rd (WTF?) and televoters ranked us 9th. I don't know what juries smoked but that 3rd place was just scandalous and offensive to other uptempo acts that had better visuals and gave polished performances (Bulgaria, Belgium, Russia). I knew juries would like us but third place was way too much given what we proposed. It feels both weird and unfair to be the most voted country of the big 5 tbh, only the British entry was worse than us to me, the rest was better. Thankfully, people thought it wasn't worth that much; 6th is of course a very nice achievement for us, still I think it hurts to see more deserving songs right below us (Armenia, Poland...). In my personal ranking, "J'ai Cherché" is ranked 39th out of 42: I find the song incredibly average and musically basic and repetitive. The more I listen to it, the less I stand it actually. If I had some advice to give, I'd say do not try to imitate previous winners ("J'ai Cherché" was "Heroes" without a projector), give up on cheap gimmicks (no more "you-ou" please) and bring something new to the table. We should work more on visuals too, not to overdo things in that department, but to obtain a presentation that's really in line with the song. I hope that I'll be able to support my country again in a near future
Sorry for the delay but I currently don't have much time to dedicate to the remaining entries I haven't reviewed yet. Besides, my review about France was ready to be published on Thursday morning but the forum faced a major error and I lost everything... I wasn't sure about whether I would be brave enough to re-write everything or not. After a couple of days of reflection, I decided to re-start from scratch. Amir - J'ai cherché
Status: No :?
Song: Members who know me a little bit know that I have never blindly supported my own country in Eurovision. Actually, it's rather the contrary, I've always been more critical about our entries because I don't think one should show more complacency to one's own nation - hence why I don't get some overly patriotic members here - but that's just my opinion.
Our 2010's track record has not been good tbh, so I agree with most of our failures (same in the 2000's): I liked a couple of efforts (2009, 2011), I also recognised the quality of "L'Enfer Et Moi" (2013) that didn't deserve to bomb imo. Otherwise, I didn't like the rest (2010, 2014) and "N'oubliez Pas" - despite being decently composed - was too boring and dated to score big points in 2015. Frankly, our last great effort to date remains "Je N'ai Que Mon Âme (2001) to me. After last year's fiasco, our head of entertainment Nathalie André stated that she finally got the Eurovision spirit and that everything would change this year: it is the usual spiel we have every year but it seems that our broadcaster was really willing to get out of the bottom 5 this time. After weeks of weird teasing and an early announcement from a rival channel, it was revealed that ex-the Voice singer Amir would represent us with the song "J'ai Cherché". It is a feel-good electro-pop uptempo entry dealing with someone who suffered from not finding a meaning to their existence despite seeking one. But due to love (or faith), that person finally finds a place in this world. The lyrics are decent, even though the lyricists seem to have favoured rhymes over meaning sometimes (maybe that's just me being demanding here ). However, I do not approve of the chorus in English, which is lyrically flat and lazy; the objective was of course to create a catchy hook for the song, but I believe something less basic in French would have been better (yes, I am one of those who think France should stick to French). Regarding the music, the song starts off with a high-pitched electronic sound (probably coming from a synthesizer) while Amir quickly begins to sing the first verse - whose phrasings are rather fast-paced - accompanied by an acoustic guitar in the background and some piano chords punctuating the vocal melodic lines. Then the pre-chorus follows, a finger-snap-sounding beat is introduced and the phrasings are slower and slightly more spaced. That short part leads immediately to the chorus composed of a busier beat, a very noticeable synthesizer performing a new melodic part, and heavy backing voices who support the main gimmicks of the song. Actually, they are the gimmicks themselves as the chorus relies on a vocalized "you-ou" line and word repetition (I'll be looking looking looking for you), which are elements easy to remember but not really that interesting. To me, the chorus sounds repetitive and borderline annoying, and the fact it's repeated twice every time is reinforcing that feeling imo. The arrangements of the second verse are the same as for the first one, except the additional beat used to keep momentum relatively high; Amir's tone is also higher here compared with the beginning. Instead of the pre-chorus, the chorus starts again with stripped down arrangements before it gets back to normal. The bridge is quite short and unremarkable imo, and the chorus will be used until the song ends; Amir performs some high notes and vocal variations, but that's not enough to make up for the repetitiveness of it: there are definitely too many "you-ou" for me. Finally, our broadcaster sent a song that's actually in line with our current music scene (which is indeed an improvement) and it has been a wise decision as the song does well in our charts (our last entry to enjoy major success was "Je N'ai Que Mon Âme"), but the song isn't cup of tea, it's precisely what I don't like about our mainstream music nowadays: aseptic, simple and unambitious would be the adjectives I'd use to describe it. I feel like the verses' and bridge's existence is only an excuse for repeating ad nauseam the chorus that represents three quarters of the song. To sum up, while I think this is a step in the right direction (that effort was much less hopeless than our last efforts), this is not that great either imo.Voice: First, I'd like to point out that the producers/arrangers were very heavy-handed with autotune in the studio version, mainly during choruses. The high notes were also computer-corrected and the very last note is just disgusting :? OMG I can't believe they kept it! Regarding the high notes, I don't understand why they included some while Amir is not able to reach them: if he has difficulties reaching them in studio, no wonder it won't sound good live. Thankfully, he gave up on singing them during his performance. He did a decent job imo, he succeeded in singing the verses - that didn't enable him to breathe much - and he of course mastered the chorus; but apart from vocals, I think he lacked energy and connection to the audience (unlike Laura Tesoro for instance) as well as charisma, he failed to "fill" the stage alone to me (unlike Gabriela or Poli Genova for instance).
Staging: Our head of entertainment Nathalie André said that our staging was too complex in 2015 (really?
), so maybe that's why we got a Outcome: France placed 6th out of 26 countries in the grand final, as juries ranked us 3rd (WTF?) and televoters ranked us 9th. I don't know what juries smoked but that 3rd place was just scandalous and offensive to other uptempo acts that had better visuals and gave polished performances (Bulgaria, Belgium, Russia). I knew juries would like us but third place was way too much given what we proposed. It feels both weird and unfair to be the most voted country of the big 5 tbh, only the British entry was worse than us to me, the rest was better. Thankfully, people thought it wasn't worth that much; 6th is of course a very nice achievement for us, still I think it hurts to see more deserving songs right below us (Armenia, Poland...). In my personal ranking, "J'ai Cherché" is ranked 39th out of 42: I find the song incredibly average and musically basic and repetitive. The more I listen to it, the less I stand it actually. If I had some advice to give, I'd say do not try to imitate previous winners ("J'ai Cherché" was "Heroes" without a projector), give up on cheap gimmicks (no more "you-ou" please) and bring something new to the table. We should work more on visuals too, not to overdo things in that department, but to obtain a presentation that's really in line with the song. I hope that I'll be able to support my country again in a near future
Mrm
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Our commentators just laughed their asses off when our spokesperson completely failed at singing the melody
Not satisfied with her epic fail, she succeeded in embarrassing us with her all-over-the-place speechSomehow when her name was announced, I knew a mess was coming
She doesn't know how much she doesn't know...that is her problem..
Amir's been nominated for a NRJ Music Award in the category of Francophone Breakthrough of the Year! If you can, please vote for him every day until November 6 (you can either connect by Facebook or make an account to vote)
http://www.nrj.fr/music-awards
http://www.nrj.fr/music-awards
ANOTHER UPDATE: Amir's also been nominated for Best French Act at the 2016 MTV Europe Awards! Vote for him here: http://fr.mtvema.com/votez#cat=best-french
Amir emerged the big winner today at the NRJ Music Awards in Cannes! He won 2 awards: French Breakthrough of the Year and French Song of the Year for "J'ai cherché"! On receiving his second award of the night, he took time to thank all those who believed in him on his Eurovision journey
And so, over a year later....
*Amir's career continues to explode in France. After returning from Kiev as a commentator for France 2, he resumed his national tour while still doing music events for the major national music stations like NRJ and ChérieFM
*His album went double platinum in France and gold in Switzerland. "J'ai cherché" was also certified platinum, and "On dirait" went gold
*A second album is on the way
But the most recent news is that on May 26, Amir released a bilingual collaboration with his favorite band OneRepublic on their latest single "No Vacancy", which is now available on all digital platforms (iTunes, Spotify, etc.). The track is really good!
*Amir's career continues to explode in France. After returning from Kiev as a commentator for France 2, he resumed his national tour while still doing music events for the major national music stations like NRJ and ChérieFM
*His album went double platinum in France and gold in Switzerland. "J'ai cherché" was also certified platinum, and "On dirait" went gold
*A second album is on the way
But the most recent news is that on May 26, Amir released a bilingual collaboration with his favorite band OneRepublic on their latest single "No Vacancy", which is now available on all digital platforms (iTunes, Spotify, etc.). The track is really good!
Amir ! My great French favorite entry. Since i heard the "You-u-u-u" i'm in love. Even the song is catchy. I have the luck to meet him last year. And a pleasure to meet him again the 28th.
I'm happy about his career after Eurovision. When he won the best song of the year with "j'ai cherché" i'm very happy. Recently, he release his last single "Etats d'amour". Honestly, a singer that i would like to see more often :
I'm happy about his career after Eurovision. When he won the best song of the year with "j'ai cherché" i'm very happy. Recently, he release his last single "Etats d'amour". Honestly, a singer that i would like to see more often :