Review
Genre and Mood
Queens - Live At Gaité Lyrique, Paris is Her and Zefire playing Queens to a Paris audience, and the song becomes a long, soulful, groovy stretch of indie pop and R&B. This is not the studio track: it was recorded in front of a sold-out room at La Gaîté Lyrique and runs about seven minutes, nearly twice as long.
Song Summary
Queens first appeared as a studio song with ZéFire in late 2016, with a video directed by Axel Morin, and belongs to Her Tape #2, the EP released in April 2017. A Milwaukee blog heard elements of “electronica, hip hop, jazz, and countless other influences” in it and “quality pop” from ZéFire. Her Live Tape #2, released on 30 June 2017, gathers seven songs from the Gaîté Lyrique concert; Queens closes it, after covers of “A Change Is Gonna Come” and “Let’s Stay Together”. The credits name Her as writers, singers and producers, Zefire as lyricist and vocalist, and Catherine Vigon and Anaelle Solet on background vocals; Michael Declerck mixed it.
Musical Breakdown
No source describes this performance passage by passage, so the breakdown keeps to what is documented.
The Length
The studio video runs 3:43, this recording 7:02. Where the band spends the extra time is for your ears to find.
The Voices
Victor Solf and Simon Carpentier share the lead with Zefire, with two credited background singers behind them.
Outro
As the last track of the live tape, Queens is also how the record says goodbye; the sources do not say how the performance ends.
Concepts in Focus
A live recording captures a band in front of people rather than building a track in the studio, and it often differs from the record. Queens shows the most measurable difference, its length. Her had already been changing the song on stage: in a live video from the Moth Club in London, premiered by Gigwise in March 2017, a “playful live version” opens with an a cappella intro before the full band comes in. The Paris recording is a separate performance, but the London video shows how freely the duo treated the song.
The song is also a case of the <a href=“https://korczis.github.io/sonic-playground/concept/featured-artist/” class=“concept-link font-medium text-primary-700 underline decoration-dotted underline-offset-4 hover:decoration-solid dark:text-primary-400” data-concept=“featured-artist” title=“A guest performer credited on another artist’s track, usually as “feat.”: a rapper’s verse, a singer’s hook or a second voice. Features bring together different styles and audiences and are central to hip-hop, R&B and dance music.“>featured artist. Queens is Her’s song with Zefire’s voice and words, credited to both. The venue’s archive lists the evening itself as “her + ZéFIRE”, so the guest is part of the concert’s identity, not only the record’s.
Artistic Context
Her were Victor Solf and Simon Carpentier, a duo from Rennes formed in 2015 by two singers who had met in high school. The Gaîté Lyrique described them as mixing soul and pop “to claim their love for women”, quoting their aim: “We’re trying to achieve 1+1=3, that third person being Her”. The concert, which the venue’s archive dates to Tuesday 11 April 2017, came days after Her Tape #2; studio versions from the tapes include Her – Jeanie J and Her – Five Minutes. Carpentier died of cancer in August 2017, and Solf ended the band after the tour.
Impact and Reception
Her Live Tape #2 kept a moment the duo could not repeat: within months Carpentier had died. Listen to Queens as the sound of a band at full stretch in front of a sold-out Paris crowd.
