Tycoon
(the English version of Starmania)
"In 1978 Michel Berger (music) and Luc Plamondon (story and lyrics) released an album of a new musical 'STARMANIA' in France. The recording was a great success in French-speaking territories and led to a spectacular stadium production in Paris the following year featuring a number of leading recording artists. Several songs from the score became hits and throughout the eighties many other versions of the work were presented, primarily in France and French-speaking Canada, Luc Plamondon's home ground.
In 1988, Michel and Luc decided to produce the first fully theatrical version, of what had by now become a French musical classic, at the Théâtre de Paris. I was invited to see the show there in early 1989, by which time it had proved itself the rarest of animals, a hit show in a city infamous as a graveyard for musicals.
I was delighted to be invited to adapt 'Starmania' for the English-speaking world. Luc's story-line of a so-called perfect society, not too many years or miles away, that fails to bring happiness to either privileged or dispossessed is a timeless one and the music and words, that have swept France in the telling, memorable. His central character is a politically ambitious tycoon, Zéro Janvier. We are currently working on an English stage presentation of the piece (in the meantime the show has played in Moscow, Madrid and several German cities) and this album contains 13 of the songs intended for that production."
Malheureusement, à ma connaissance du moins, une version anglaise de Starmania n'a jamais à ce jour été montée, et tous les anglophones doivent se contenter d'un album... ou apprendre le français! <Cliquez sur le titre anglais pour accéder aux paroles / Click on the English title for the words of the song)
The world is stone Cyndi Lauper (= Le monde est stone)
A little damage done Matt & Luke Goss (=Quand on arrive en ville)
Only the very best Peter Kingsbery (=S.O.S. d'un terrien en détresse)
You get what you deserve Nina Hagen (= Travesti)
Ziggy Céline Dion (=Un garçon pas comme les autres)
Nobody chooses Willy de Ville (=Banlieue nord)
Working girl Kim Carnes (= La complainte de la serveuse automate)
Tonight we dance (Extravagance) Céline Dion (=Ce soir on danse au Naziland)
Pollution's child Kevin Robinson (=Un enfant de la pollution)
I would love to change the world (The businessman's blues) Tom Jones (=Le blues du businessman)
Farewell to a Sex Symbol Ronnie Spector (= Les adieux d'un Sex Symbol)
Ego Trip Peter Kingsbery (=Ego Trip)
You have to learn to live alone Cyndi Lauper (=Les uns contre les autres)