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USO Show from the troops continues with this sexy French video. Here is the provocative and sensational French recording artist Mylene Farmer. Mylene Farmer, one of the most popular female singers on the current French music scene, has cultivated an aura of mystery from the very beginning of her career.

If you use the following English translation of the lyrics to L’amour N’est Rien, please credit Right Pundits.

(lyrics in english)

Obsessed of the worse
And not very verbose
My least sighs
are métaphysique…
I have in my sky
Of the tons of celestial
Cling to the wings…
And fall the Gabriel angel!

Obsessed of the worse
A few too physical…
The desire to quiver
Be Pharaonic!
… Oh of the asceticism!
My life darkens itslef
Me without the language
Without sex me me bloodless!

The love, it is anything!
When it is politically correct
One likes itself well
One n’ doesn’t know even when one gets injured
The love it is anything
When all is sexually correct
One gets bored well
One shouts before for that that stops
Life is not anything…
When it is tepid!
it consumes itself and topple you
Blood in ashes of cigarette
Life is well…
it is of honey!
When acidic itself of dynamite
Who likes me follows me!

Obsessed of the worse
And not very verbose
My least sighs
aref métaphysiquent…
I have in the head
Of the tons of pirouettes
The jump of the angel
Doesn’t have for me anything strange

Obsessed of the worse
And not very verbose
To share my laughters
Rather Plutonic
I have in my sphere
A greenhouse effect
My blood bubbles
I boil all, in short

Marie-Hélène Gauthier was born in the town of Pierrefond near Montreal on September 12 1961. Her father, an engineer, was employed in Canada at the time building a dam system and Marie and her brothers and sister (Brigitte, Michel and Jean Loup), were thus brought up in the French-speaking province of Quebec. When Marie was 10 the family returned to France, settling in the Paris suburb of Ville d’Avray.

In her teenage years Marie was passionate about horses and she would devote all her free time and energy to riding (going on to pass her riding instructor exam at the famous equestrian centre in Saumur). But 17-year-old Marie’s other great passion in life was acting and she would eventually abandon the stables to take a three-year course at the Cours Florent, a prestigious drama school in Paris. Changing her name to Mylène Farmer (after her favourite American actress Frances Farmer), Marie began to earn a living as a model and even went on to star in several TV ads.

It was around this time that Mylène met Laurent Boutonnat, a young man who had also trained as an actor. This encounter was to change the course of Mylène’s life, for Laurent not only became her partner but also a kind of Pygmalion figure, helping her get her career off the ground. Laurent, whose ambition was to become a film director, was also the driving force behind Mylène’s amazing videos.

“Maman a tort”

Laurent Boutonnat teamed up with the young songwriter, Jérôme Dahan, and the pair went on to write Mylène’s first hit, “Maman à tort” - a single which rocketed straight to the top of the French charts as soon as it was released in March 1984. The video which accompanied the single release, cost the modest sum of 5,000 francs, but it would cause a veritable stir in the music world. Boutonnat cast Mylène as a kind of provocative Lolita figure, and the singer would deliberately cultivate this image in the early days of her career, especially on her début album, “Cendres de lunes”. This album, released in January 1986, proved to be an immense success, selling over 1 million copies.

“Libertine”, the first single released from the album in March 86, set the tone for the whole Mylène Farmer style. Mylène’s sensual, romantic lyrics (which she wrote herself) were very much inspired by the great figures of 19th century literature and set to sophisticated melodies (written by Boutonnat). Boutonnat also took charge of directing Mylène’s videos, imposing his distinctive style on them. The video which accompanied “Libertine”, for instance, is heavily charged with 18th century eroticism (conjuring up images of the film “Barry Lyndon” and the novels of the Marquis de Sade). Mylène, lit only in the glow of soft candlelight, is shrouded in an aura of mystery and sexual ambiguity. (This mysterious erotic ambience would continue to be the singer’s trademark throughout the rest of her career, infusing the following videos “Tristana” and “Sans contrefaçon”).

Mylène’s second album, “Ainsi soit-je”, smashed all her previous sales records, soaring to the top of the album charts immediately after its release in March 1988. This album, infused with the same dark, erotic atmosphere as the singer’s previous work, featured songs inspired by Mylène’s favourite authors, the French romantic poet Baudelaire and the American horror writer Edgar Allan Poe. The album also featured a particularly erotic version of Juliette Gréco’s hit “Déshabillez-moi”.

First Live

In spite of all her drama courses Mylène still found it difficult to overcome her natural shyness and perform in front of an audience. It was only after much hesitation that the singer finally agreed to do a live concert in 1989. After singing at a small venue in St Etienne, as a kind of test run, Mylène finally arrived in Paris to perform at the Palais des Sports where fans packed the auditorium out for a whole week in May. Mylène wasted no time in overcoming her stage fright and even appeared to enjoy performing on stage, for she followed the Paris concerts with an extensive tour which included 52 dates throughout France and Europe. (Her 1989 tour would result in a special live album released in December).

Mylène’s spectacular stage shows together with her wacky appearance and piercing vocals, soon began to attract an increasing number of fans. Meanwhile Mylène continued to surround herself with an air of mystery, refusing to give interviews or to appear in the media - but this only served to excite fans’ curiosity about the reclusive star.

Mylène devoted almost the whole of 1990 to her work in the studio, recording 10 new songs for her album “L’autre”, which was finally released in April 91. Boutonnat recreated his special magic once again in the spectacular videos accompanying “Désenchantée”, “Regrets” (a duet with Jean Louis Murat), “Je t’aime mélancolie” and “Beyond My Control”. The video for the latter was banned from French TV screens, however, censors deeming it too violent and shocking for viewers. Mylène followed the album with a hugely successful tour, which attracted tens of thousands of fans. Encouraged by this success, Mylène released a special compilation album in November 1992, featuring dance remixes of her greatest hits .

In the winter of 92/93 Mylène Farmer set off for Slovakia with Laurent Boutonnat to star in his first feature film “Giorgino”. The pair spent five long hard months, trudging through the snow and working under extremely difficult conditions, Mylène throwing herself body and soul into her role as a young autist.

Cinematic Flop

Accustomed as she was to pulling off phenomenal record sales with the greatest of ease and performing sell-out tours across France, Mylène was totally unprepared for her first failure. When “Giorgino” hit the cinema screens on October 4 1994, Boutonnat’s film proved to be a spectacular flop. The film, which had involved a huge budget of over 80 million francs, recovered a paltry 1 and a half million francs at the box office. Fans who had flocked to see Mylène Farmer in concert were definitely not queuing to see their music idol at the cinema, and, owing to an almost total lack of interest, the film was taken off Paris screens after only a three-week run.

Devastated by this cinematic failure, Mylène left France and moved to Los Angeles for a while and she would eventually decide to record her next album, “Anamorphosée”, in the States. The album, which was released in France on October 17 1995, revealed a new-style Mylène Farmer. The singer’s new material was definitely more rock-oriented, featuring a much more energetic, electric guitar sound. The cover of the new album showed that Mylène’s image had also undergone a radical transformation. The portrait on the album cover, taken by the famous American photographer Herb Ritts, showed a new-look Mylène who had left the ambiguous Lolita image of her old days behind and gone for a more mature leather look. Mylène’s videos had also undergone a radical transformation. After the spectacular flop of “Giorgione”, Mylène’s new videos were no longer placed under the artistic direction of Laurent Boutonnat. They were shot instead by top American film directors such as Abel Ferrara (renowned for his films “Bad Lieutenant” and “Snake Eyes”) who made the video for “California”.

After the release of her new album, Mylène then returned to her touring activities, performing three spectacular shows at the massive Bercy Stadium (May 28 and 29 and June 1). She then set off upon an extensive tour of France. But the tour was cut short after an accident in Lyon on June 15, when the singer skidded off stage at the end of a concert, fell into the orchestra pit and broke her wrist. Mylène bounded back on stage in November, however, continuing her hectic schedule right up until another series of hugely popular shows at Bercy in the spring of 97.

Mylène was back in the music news in 1999 with a new album entitled “Innamoramento”. The album - for which Mylène penned practically all the lyrics herself and wrote the music for 5 of the 13 tracks - remained true to the singer’s successful hit-making formula. The first two single releases, “l’Ame stram gram” and “Souviens-toi du jour”, rocketed straight to the top of the French charts, boosting sales of “Innamoramento” which went on to sell almost a million copies.

Later that year Mylène set off on her famous “Mylenium Tour”, performing a series of lavish over-the-top stage shows up and down the country. The concerts attracted thousands of committed Mylène fans who turned out in force to see their idol dressed in sexy/futurist stage garb, emerging from the head of a giant Sphinx and breaking into a superbly-choreographed work-outs! One of the highlights of the “Mylenium Tour” was Mylène’s run at Bercy Stadium in Paris, where in September 1999, she brought the house down four nights in a row.

Mylène rocketed back into the music news in January 2000, scooping three of the top prizes at the NRJ Music Awards in Cannes. Greeted by rapturous applause from the (largely teenage) audience, the singer sobbed her way through her acceptance speech amidst a flash of camera bulbs.

At the end of 2000, after long months spent on the road for the sake of her “Mylenium Tour”, she released a live album featuring highlights from this gigantic show. One of the biggest ever produced in France this show was as triumphal as Farmer’s tours usually are and the album was released in several formats (video, DVD, collector’s CD and LP).

Mylène’s greatest hits

By the end of 2001 “Mylenium Tour had gone double platinum (selling over 600,000 copies). Following this success, Mylène’s record label went on to release the singer’s first “Greatest Hits” album entitled “Les Mots”. This double album - featuring no less than 29 tracks! - proved to be the next instalment of the Mylène success story, shooting straight to no.1 in the album charts shortly after its release. The title track, a duet with UK singer Seal, was chosen as the first single release from the album.

On 19 January 2002 Mylène went on to triumph at the NRJ Music Awards, carrying off the trophy for Best Female Francophone Artist of the Year.

Shortly afterwards French daily Figaro Entreprises published a report on 14 February 2002, naming Mylène Farmer as the French artist who had made the most revenue from copyright in 2001, earning 10.4 million euros as a singer, songwriter, composer and producer of young French talent Alizée.

That same year she received the “Platinum Europe award” at the Europe Awards for her million-selling Best Of. And the following year, she was named Best Francophone Artist of the year at the NRJ Music Awards.

But it wasn’t until March 2005 that she released “Fuck them all”, the first single from her latest studio album. The album itself, “Avant que l’ombre”, came out a month later. All her key themes are to be found here: death, spirituality but also love and sex. Mylène Farmer wrote all the lyrics, to music by the ever faithful Laurent Boutonnat. Although always discreet (yet effective) when it comes to promoting her album, Mylène Farmer announced 13 concert dates in January 2006 at the Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy, all of which were quickly booked up.

On the whole, Mylène Farmer remains as mysterious a figure as ever, shunning interviews and media appearances. The singer has nevertheless built up an extensive following of fans and her albums and concerts continue to cause a huge stir on the French music scene.

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