Christine and The Queens names his dream collaborations
French singer-songwriter Héloïse Letissier, known professionally as Christine and the Queens or simply Chris, has enjoyed unbound critical and commercial success over the past decade. His debut album, Chaleur humaine, was an instant sensation upon its release in 2014, reaching number two on the album charts in France and the UK.
After breaking through, Letissier’s second album, Chris, and its follow-up EP, La Vita Nouva, sustained commercial attention while garnering unprecedented acclaim from the critics. Most notably, Letissier was praised for 2020’s La Vita Nouva, a brazen artistic response to the tragic death of his mother. In 2022, Letissier began releasing singles under the new alias Redcar, culminating in his third solo album, Redcar les adorables étoiles (prologue), released in November.
The long-awaited third studio album had originally been teased in 2020, following the arrival of La Vita Nouva. During a conversation with NME around the time, he discussed the prospect of forthcoming music and picked out a few artists she dreams of collaborating with one day.
“I’m super shy, so I need to be comfortable with them,” Cris began. “I can’t just write to them out of the blue and say, ‘Hey, let’s collab’. I don’t know how to do that shit. I love Kevin Parker from Tame Impala and am obsessed with his work. I don’t know if it will ever happen. I love MGMT and would love to do something with them too.”
“Like everyone else on earth, I love Rosalia too,” he added. “If she wanted to, I could write a fucking movie for her. She’s really consistent and super charismatic.”
On the title track of La Vita Nouva, Letissier was lucky enough to work with one of his contemporary heroes, Caroline Polacheck. Later in his conversation with NME, Letissier discussed his collaborator.
“I’ve been a longtime fan of hers,” he said. “I loved Chairlift and loved her solo record Ramona Lisa when it first came out. At some point, we crossed paths, she was super nice, and we exchanged numbers. We’ve been loosely talking since then. After my collaboration with Charli [XCX], we talked again, and it all just happened very spontaneously. She was in Paris for Fashion Week, and I was working on the EP. Since ‘La Vita Nuova’ is quite a camp love song, I immediately thought of Caroline.”
“In my head, she was the only one who I could imagine singing in Italian, being classy about it and making it look normal,” he added.
Hear Letissier and Caroline Polachek collaborate on ‘La Vita Nuova’ below.
