Mitsou | The new rodeo of a legend

Since her last album released in 1999, Mitsou, the singer, has rarely been remembered as often as in recent months. An attempt to clarify a joyful resurgence with the one who, without promising a real return to music, assures that she is not ready to say goodbye.

“Music is my core, it’s my first passion,” says Mitsou, seated in a café where she is accustomed, a few steps from the offices of Dazmo, the company she co-founded in 1997, so that her singing career was running out of steam.

For several years, without ever completely ceasing to be the daughter of Bye bye my cowboy in the Quebec imagination, the businesswoman will have devoted herself to this business of composing music on screen, as well as to television and radio animation, to gaming (Barbarian invasions someone!) and to his webmagazine.

But the original Mitsou – Mitsou, the singer – had rarely been so recalled to our memory as in recent months. Participation in Pierre Lapointe’s winter tour, collaboration with Laurence Nerbonne on his potential hit CowgirlCoca-Cola holiday commercial to the sound of Bye bye my cowboyinterpretation of his success Tell me, tell me (1990) by Lennikim on the show Zenith from ICI Télé and by drag queen Tracy Trash on the show Drags – The queens of pop from Télé-Québec; Mitsou could have begged us, no one wanted to forget her.

Finally, exclaims Laurence Nerbonne, about this great bullfight of testimonies of affection. “Mitsou was a very liberated woman, on all levels, at a time when Quebec was not so liberated in its pop. Good pop hits are not something that was celebrated,” observes the one whose song Cowgirl proclaims that “Mitsou, it’s not just a comeback, it’s a legend”, in addition to raining down on her the epithets “CEO”, “pop boss” and “first cowgirl of Quebecers”.

By working with her, the 39-year-old musician and director will have been able to measure the extent to which Mitsou is a creator in her own right and not the simple vehicle of others’ ambitions.

She wasn’t presented much as the girl with the ideas. She experienced a lot of sexism, but she paved the way for what I do today. It must be said more than Mitsou, it is a major piece of the history of music in Quebec.

Laurence Nerbonne

Need to sing

At 13, with the money raised by starring in the TV series as a child Human Earth, Mitsou Gélinas bought her first synthesizer, a Korg Poly-800, at Steve’s Music and formed, as a keyboardist, a duo with E. P. Bergen (later of Bran Van 3000). “Except I needed more,” she recalls today at 53. I needed to sing. »

El Mundo, his first album released in 1989, was recorded in a semi-basement on rue Saint-André, at the corner of Ontario, in close collaboration with the director, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Jean-Pierre Isaac. But the performer has always been the spearhead of her projects, the one who infused them with their vision.

We must not forget that she is the granddaughter of Gratien Gélinas, says the main person concerned. “And the character of Mitsou is a mixture of Fridolin the little tannant,” she explains, evoking the legendary character from her grandfather’s great theatrical revue, The Fridolinades (1938), “and the feminism of Oil tankers ”, the 1972 film starring Brigitte Bardot.

His three musical references for Bye bye my cowboy ? Mitsou lists Smalltown Boy, by Bronski Beat, the hit by the English synthpop duo that Jean-Pierre Isaac played whenever she hit the Belmont dance floor (even if she was not an adult), Marcia Baïla, by Rita Mitsouko, and the vaporous video clip shot in super-8 by How Soon Is Now? of the Smiths.

“But it’s as if we couldn’t imagine that all that, this whole character, had been imagined by me,” regrets the one who also co-wrote certain songs (including Tell me, tell me). “You couldn’t imagine that I knew music. But if we could have had this discussion from the start, it would surely have changed my life. »

Without denying the major contribution of the people with whom I collaborated, it was insulting that I was never believed to be the author of this character. Few people understood this aspect and it pissed me off.

Mitsou

Respect for pop

Mitsou is obviously not the only artist of her time to have been placed in the category of cute puppets. “When we look back at the media treatment of several icons of the 1990s and 2000s, we quickly see how easy it was to denigrate them, to make fun of them, to slutshame them,” underlines comedian Tranna Wintour, who recently received her friend and idol on the microphone of her podcast series The Divas.

The level of misogyny she suffered was horrific, while Mitsou’s artistic vision, in the 1990s, was second to none. She was bold, glamorous, intelligent. She did things in her music videos that no one else was doing.

Tranna Wintour

Mitsou is aware that she is among a long list of creative women reduced to their physical attributes, considered as objects rather than subjects. “I’m going to tell you something crude,” she warns, smiling. “It’s like when someone is blindfolded, they can’t hear anything else. When there is a desire, we would like the desired person to be as docile as possible. »

And the saddest thing is perhaps that Mitsou assimilated this idea for a long time, which she still unravels to this day, wanting that pop deserves no respect. One thing is certain: this new appreciation for his music, inseparable from the nostalgia for the 1990s currently permeating all of popular culture, calms him down a lot.

“That a woman who makes pop music cannot be respected, I had integrated it into my psyche,” she laments. It’s something I had to let go of. And Pierre (Lapointe) was extraordinary during his tour to boost my self-esteem and ego, because for years, when I talked about the singer that I was, it was very much in the mode of self-deprecation. Whereas there, the sincere love that the musicians had for me was like the most beautiful reality check. »

And a return?

Could these multiple declarations of admiration be enough for Mitsou to tackle a real new album? “I’ve always said no, but what’s certain is that it would have to come organically,” replies the woman who systematically refuses to take part in collective shows in homage to the 1990s. “I don’t I can’t categorize myself in time in that way. »

This is because even if Mitsou will always belong to this decade, she wishes to continue to belong, first and foremost, to the present.

“We have the impression that popular music is reserved for youth,” she concludes, “but when I saw Blondie at Osheaga in 2018, with Debbie Harry who was still punk at over 70, it was a revelation: being relevant has nothing to do with age. »

“The sound of the 1990s is Jean-Pierre Isaac”

Jean-Pierre Isaac, director of Mitsou’s first album and songwriter of several of his hits (including Bye bye my cowboy, Bullfighting And The Chinese), died on February 28 of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis at the age of 68.

“On the Belmont floor, I stopped dancing to watch him spin,” remembers Mitsou. “I was fascinated by his musical knowledge. You gave him one or two indications and bang, he wrote you a tune of the same. He had all the current references. »

Despite his incomparable career, the multi-instrumentalist has always remained in the shadows and has been little celebrated. “He’s someone who never showed off, who was very discreet and shy,” remembers the singer about the man who also directed or co-directed Honey and venom (1992) by Marie Carmen, When we give ourselves… (1992) by Francis Martin and the first two BB albums (1989 and 1991), in addition to collaborating with RBO, Mario Pelchat, French B and Céline Dion.

“I wanted to bridge the gap between what I heard in the clubs and what I didn’t hear on the radio,” explains Mitsou, “and Jean-Pierre was my translator. The sound of the 1990s, in Quebec, is him. »

Read Mitsou’s tribute to Jean-Pierre Isaac on Instagram