On a recent stop to Los Angeles, Christine and the Queens performed their Chris track “Comme Si” live at Capitol Studios, and a group of seven dancers joined Chris for the performance. The dancers added hip-hop moves and some dramatic flare to the synth-laden, new-wave song as singer Christine showed off her own moves in a spotlight and deceptively sings, “Focus on my voice and let go” (as if you could focus on anything but the dancing).
In last year’s Rolling Stone feature on the artist, who will be performing at this year’s Coachella, she recalled how a trip to London, where she meet three drag queens, encouraged her to embrace pop music so she could combine her loves of theater and dance with singing. While making Chris, she drew inspiration from Michael Jackson’s Dangerous (an obvious influence, judging from the dancing in the video) and early Nineties Janet Jackson. The appeal of those artists, she said, was that their sounds “could be warm, almost like flesh pulsing with blood, and still be minimalistic. They were building monsters of efficiency, but also flamboyance and extravaganza.”
As for the songs on the album, she said she wanted to make “complicated narratives.” She said that they revolve around “this multi-faceted character of a woman who can be extremely lustful and extremely depressed, extremely powerful and extremely vulnerable. It’s not just a pose. It’s a reality for me. I mean, it’s not easy for me to understand, so why would it be easy for other people to understand?”