Showing posts with label Yelle. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Yelle. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Dateline: Lilly Town

Just a quick update on a few things as I run out the door to work. A little dry, perhaps, but I find if you read it in the style of one of those old-timey black & white newsreels they used to show before movies back in the day, it's infinitely more entertaining. Enjoy!

  • Snatcher42 (aka Ben from Operation LTNY) graciously shows Op Drop a little love in his super-sized Lili News segment on the tenth episode of the Alizée America Podcast, which dropped on Monday. Ciara and Ben's show is always a fun and informative listen for Alizée fans, and I'd heartily recommend it even if it wasn't out there pimpin' for me. They're up to double digits now, people! Ow!

  • Meanwhile Op Drop’s YouTube promotional video, ‘Vote for Alizée in Los Premios MTV 2008’, is racking up a decent number of views—the version on my account has reached 611, while the mirror that Ruroshen graciously posted has netted 459. That’s 1070 views in total in less than a week, which hopefully translates into a decent number of votes for Alizée...and with less than a week to go before the polls close, every vote counts! Big thanks to Alizée fan HRO87, who embedded it in a post in the English section of the multi-lingual Alizée Forum, where it's been racking up a fair number of views. Thanks for helping to spread the word, HR087. Hopefully it gets folks over there pumped up to vote.

  • And speaking of Ruroshen and the MTVLA awards, he’s going to be hosting a day-long Alizée Vote-athon voice chat over at TalkShoe this Sunday, September 28, starting at 10 am Eastern Time, and going as late as people are interested. Essentially, it’ll be place for fans to drop in and hang out with each other as they spend the day voting Lili up at Los Premios MTV 2008. It sounds like fun, and I’d totally be there myself if it wasn’t for a) my oppressive fear of awkward social situations, and b) the fact that I have to attend my cousin’s wedding on Sunday (which is not going to be good time—see a). You can learn more about it in Ruro’s post about the event at the Alizée America forums.

  • Finally, just a quick reminder that MySpace singing sensation Yelle’s American tour, ‘C’est Amerique!’, starts in just a few days, with the first American date being October 7 in Dallas, Texas. These shows provide a great opportunity to promote Alizée in the United States…and if you’re interested, Op Drop is willing to supply the disques you need to do it! We already have one remote operative scheduled to make a drop at an upcoming show, but the more we have, the better! Check out Yelle’s MySpace for the show nearest you, then drop me a line if you’d like to get in on the action!

Friday, September 19, 2008

Back to Basiques


Why's it called 'Operation: Disque Drop' again...?

Given how little I’ve written about it in the past few weeks, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Operation: Disque Drop had maybe lost sight of its core purpose, in that there’s apparently been precious little disque-droppage going on. Heck, the last time I even mentioned undertaking an Op Drop was back on August 28, when I summed up the last of my efforts at Fan Expo, almost three weeks ago.

Since then, it seems like I’ve written about practically everything but! I’ve been distracted, after all, by the rumors of Alizée changing record labels within Sony BMG (and hopefully getting a better promotional team behind her in the process). And then there was the hoopla surrounding Alizée’s nomination for an award at Los Premios MTV 2008 (and my ongoing efforts on YouTube to encourage fans and casual viewers alike to vote for her), which consumed me for the better part of this week.

So when is Op Drop going to get back to the business of actually dropping disques, you ask? Well, I’m happy to announce that, after two weeks spent upgrading, refining and stockpiling the reserves, the first of the Mark IV DVDs have made their way out the door, and hopefully into the hands of several enthusiastic Lili-converts. A grand total of thirty disques were unleashed Friday afternoon upon an unsuspecting public in and around the Toronto Eaton Center, downtown T-dot’s most highly-trafficked shopping center, and a popular destination for locals and tourists alike.

Though not as major an undertaking as the three-day assault on Fan Expo, in its own way, the concentrated burst appeared to be even more successful—I managed to unload all thirty disques in about half the time it took me to drop the same amount at the convention, with some disques being picked up mere seconds after I’d dropped them. I felt a little bit more exposed—in a mall that crowded, it’s nigh-impossible to pull off a discreet drop completely unnoticed—but while I raised a few eyebrows, nobody actually stopped me this time to try and return a disque. In fact, the curiousity translated into at least a few immediate pickups.

Also—bonus!—in the course of the afternoon, I discovered that the major chain music store across the street not only has a robust international music section on their third floor, but that they actually carry Alizée’s albums! Not Psychédélices, sadly, but they did have both Gourmandises and Mes Courants Electriques in stock. (Granted, it was only one copy of each, but that’s still two more Alizée albums than I’ve seen anywhere else!) I happily snapped up Gourmandises, at a relatively reasonable price, finally filling the only gap in my collection (if you don’t count Tout Alizée, which I don’t, but that’s a subject for another post). Bonus objective, achieved!

All-told, a very good day. I will definitely be making TEC a regular stop on the Op Drop tour, especially as the Christmas shopping season approaches.

Meanwhile, another payload of Mark IV disques is currently winging their way to an undisclosed location via international airmail, en route to Op Drop’s very first remote operative, for use in their mission to infiltrate one of Yelle’s upcoming North American tour appearances. More on this to come as the date of the operation approaches…

Want to get in on the action? You, too, can become a remote operative for Op Drop in your city and get in on the ground floor of Alizée’s North American revolution. Whether you’d like to infiltrate one of Yelle’s concerts (or that of another artist whose fans you think would be receptive), or you’d just like a hand getting set up to do smaller promotional things in your home town, Op Drop is here for you! Drop me a line either here in the comments or via email, and we’ll see what we can do about getting you started in promoting Alizée where you live!

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

A mild-mannered reporter for a great metropolitan Alizée blog....


Great Scott!

OK, so I’m not so much the Alizée Batman this week…more like Alizée Clark Kent, what with the chasing down of news stories, and all. Fortunately for all of us, however, my ongoing investigation of Alizée’s rumored changing of record labels, from RCA Records to Jive/Epic, is unlikely to lead to me having to save Metropolis from Lex Luthor’s evil death ray…

While there still appears to be no official word on the subject, it sounds like I may have jumped the gun in assuming a move to Jive/Epic could increase our chances of seeing Alizée cross over to North America. Snatcher42 (from Operation LTNY) explains below, in this post excerpted from Alizée America, which expands on his earlier post from Sunday:

A few points of clarification and commentary:

-I don't know if RCA is shutting down worldwide or only in France, but it's probably just the later.

-Aside from the management team change, this
shouldn't really effect Alizée overseas in places like Mexico or potentially the United States, since there she's always just been with "Sony BMG", no sub-label.

- While this will hopefully be good for Alizée in the end, I Personally find it a bit hard to be so happy over what amounts to news of restructuring and layoffs. Some may say they deserve it, but as others have mentioned this could actually be an explanation for the lack of promotion. Apparently their fate has been in question for some time. It wouldn't make sense to be promoting a lot when you think you might close shop in a few months.

-The good news is that Lili will be back soon with new stuff!

Good news, indeed. At the very least, we’ll hopefully see the renewed promotion for Fifty Sixty that was rumored to be happening on Sunday, as well as the release of a third single from Psychédélices. Personally, I’m holding out for Lilly Town—it’s catchy, poppy and fun, and has the potential to make for a really trippy music video. I’d also love to see a revival of the Psychédéclips website, particularly the Lilly Town TV section, which would go a long way towards providing real, meaningful fan interaction, and really drive home just how truly international Lili’s fan base is.

More on this story as it develops, gang. Let’s just hope I don’t have to fight a giant spider in the third act...

Image courtesy of Operation LTNY

In other news…

Production of the new Mark IV Op Drop disques continues apace. It’s slow-going, what with the me-having-a-day-job getting in the way, but the first batch is just about done and ready to be shipped out the door…to Op Drop’s very first remote operative!

That’s right, folks—one brave soul has stepped forward to take up the challenge of performing an Operation: Disque Drop at one of Yelle’s shows on her upcoming North American tour. Remember, Op Drop is committed to supplying disques free of charge to anybody who’s interested in ‘infiltrating’ one of these shows on Lili’s behalf…so if you’re an Alizée fan who’d like to get in on the underground guerilla marketing movement for zero dollars, please don’t hesitate to drop me a line!

Saturday, August 30, 2008

Alizée and Yelle: Two great tastes that taste great together!

Image courtesy of Operation LTNY

More info after the jump. (Get it?)

Just a quick reminder that Operation: Disque Drop is still looking for remote operatives to "infiltrate" the upcoming North American tour of French MySpace singing sensation Yelle. If you're a fan interested in promoting Alizée in the United States (or Vancouver, BC), this is a great way to get involved for zero dollars--I'll ship you the disques you need to do the job, free of charge, if you'll provide the manpower and the legwork to get it done!

I've only been recently exposed to Yelle, myself--having just learned of her when NarutoSoul first posed the infiltration idea this week--but from what I've heard of the music on her MySpace, going to see Yelle would be worth it just for the experience of seeing Yelle. It's very fun, poppy and catchy. I'd definitely be hitting up one of the shows myself if they were playing in my town, but unfortunately it sounds like they were already here earlier this year before I knew of them. Even if you're not interested in pimping Alizée and Op Drop--which makes me a sad panda, indeed--I'd still recommend checking them out if you're a fan of Alizée, or French pop in general.

Also, if you're a New York-area Alizée fan, and you're going to be free on October 14th, Operation LTNY would really like to hear from you.