« Désenchantée », le charme pop d’un hit transgénérationnel

Abstract

‘Désenchantée’ (1991) is undoubtedly the most emblematic song in the career of Mylène Farmer, the least well known star in Franch pop music. A true popular success, ‘Désenchantée’ is a cross-generational "earworm", covered many times over the past decades and which has recently become very popular with young artists and audiences in France. This article precisely endeavours to explore the aesthetic and cultural reasons that may have contributed ‘Désenchantée’’s success. For that purpose, I will first present the figure of Mylène Farmer, an undisputed diva for her fans but a great unknown to so-called ‘serious’ critics, one who is marked marked by ambivalence in both her reception and her aesthetics. Secondly, I will analyse the expressive mechanisms of the song, in particular its aphoristic and paradoxical style, where referential nihilism contrasts with festive uses over the years in the context of recent French cultural history. Finally, 'Désenchantée' will be examined in relation to Farmer's pop aesthetic, characterized by accessibility, imprecision and immediacy, resulting in a mysterious alchemy capable of rallying a popular audience around a simplistic but emotionally irresistible object.