My daughter attends a French Catholic school and recently the administration has chosen Toi+Moi as a theme song. My daughter has been singing it almost non stop. It is wonderful to see her so excited and I am enjoying her version of the song. One evening she wanted to hear the song at home, but we have do not have a TV so I went to Google and the first link was a link to the Wikipedia entry for the song. From there I found a link to the official video by Gregoire. The song is simple and catchy and I was finally able to understand some of the lyrics that had been lost through the school PA system.
The contrast between these two videos could not be more striking. The original video has ordinary happy people and the song has dynamics and a nice understated piano part. The album was funded by 347 people using the music equivalent of Kickstarter and 40 of them were invited to appear on the video. The video invites everyone to join the dance and the people are genuinely silly and happy.
The Star Academie video is pure celebrity making machine. Lots of makeup, glamorous clothing, carefully generated emotion, heavy bass, zero nuance and predictable choreography. I know that many people like it, but as a parent I much prefer my child to watch the original version. The story of a bunch of strangers donating money to help someone realize their dream is preferable to the un-reality of an entertainment corporation manufactured competition.
I do not want to diminish the talents of the performers on Star Academie. They are chasing their dreams as well. It is unfortunate that this is being exploited by the producers. This has been the model for a long time. But the success of Gregoire shows that a new option is now possible.