France's biggest-selling home-grown female artist,
Mylène Farmer's eighth studio album,
Bleu Noir, is the first of her career without the input of long-term collaborator
Laurent Boutonnat. Instead, the near 50-year-old diva has assembled an array of hotshot producers including
RedOne (
Lady Gaga), experimental British outfit
Archive, and
Moby on 12 tracks that combine her trademark melancholic lyrics with a slightly more commercial electro-pop sound, as on the singles "Ouis Mais... Non," "Lonely Lisa," and the title track, as well as two English-language songs, "Light Me Up" and "Inseparables."
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Jon O'Brien, Rovi