Monsieur Mazzalai

Christian Mazzalai and Phoenix Fan page

[mmazzalai]

Ooops,, forgot to update/continue the story.

So,, I added Chris to my "Celebrity crush" list,, and focused my attention on trying to get to know more about the band altogether,, while still keeping an eye out for any additional posts/pictures/stories/interviews I would find that featured more details about him (which, eventually I did find!).

And so I decided to expand the list of Phoenix songs I was currently listening to (which was: 2 songs).

I wasn't sure where to start,, so I turned to various internet forums to look up their best/most popular songs according to fans as well as the ones they played the most at concerts so that I could at least sing along to them in case I were to attend one.

And I ended up with a Playlist consisting on 12 songs. The first couple new ones I added,, actually came from their YouTube comments section.

As I mentioned before, I kept playing Lisztomania and Tonight on loop, and in one of Tonight's comments, there was one saying how the vibes of that music reminded them of "Ti amo" so I played that one next and LOVED IT. Again, I played it on loop for a bit, til I saw a comment underneath it mentioning the "Ti Amo speciale" and J-boy, so that was the next one and then the chemistry in my brain was forever altered because I fell IN LOVE with that song. Remains my favorite one til this day. The rest of my initial playlist followed soon after.

So by now it was almost the end of 2023, and it still hadn't occurred to me to look up their upcoming shows or something. I did discovered that they has come to my hometown at the end of 2022, shortly after I discovered their first song, and just assumed that they would return or come play somewhere near where I could attend. I'm not a big concert goer so traveling for a concert was not something I had considered at that point.

Around November 2023 I attended a wedding, and some of the people that were seated in the same table as mine made comments about how they were soon to attend the Corona Capital festival in CDMX and how one of their friends bailed and they had an extra ticket (reader, if you think that good news and a pleasant surprise are to come, you are about to be as disappointed as I was back then).

[mmazzalai]

Let's continue with the story on how my Phoenix obsession started.

So,, just to recap,, we were at Walmart,, Lisztomania was playing and I was hooked on it,, listened to it and played the video nonstop for days... but just that one singular song.

Some time had elapsed,, a few weeks at this point, and the rush had started to fade away. And then one day,, out of nowhere,, inwas scrolling through my Facebook friends' stories and I have this one friend who always post clips and snippets of popular songs, singers and bands and I honestly was just skipping tru but then a catchy tune started playing and I remember thinking "that's nice" so I tries to see the name on the little banner that Facebook puts at the top when you use a song in your stories and I was only able to read "Ezra Koenig",, but then I looked at the video and noticed some familiar faces and I was like.... wait a minute.... is that.... okay... sounds good. But for some reason I didn't skipped immediately to look up the full song,, just kinda shoved to the back of my mind and continued on with my life.

But that memory was still there, persistent, for days. Remember on my last post I wrote about how I struggle to consume new media due to anxiety ✨️... so I was hesitant, until I finally caved in.

I remember there was a music video, so I went to YouTube and typed in "Ezra Koenig and Phoenix" and the 'Tonight' music video started playing, and oh my frigging g0d was it GOOD.

Definitely another banger and once again I kept playing both the video and the track non stop,, mixed in with Lisztomania,, over and over and over again. I was worried I would end up sick of it, but that never happened, the music was seriously thay good to me. I was in love ❤️

And then, something else happened this time around. With the new music video, I started playing closer attention to their pretty faces as I was still getting to know them. I knew who Thomas was, usually people identify the lead singer first in a band, and I kept mixing up the other 3. I knew branco and Chris were brothers, and I knew the other one was Deck, but I still couldn't pinpoint their faces. But something about the guitar player with the big eyes and the quirky smile kept catching my eye,, I needed to know who he was,, I needed to know everything about him. So after some googling.... came the disappointment 😞

Christian Mazzalai

I was able to find everything there was about him out there. The problem was..... there isn't really that much information about him 🥲🥲🥲 he happens to be quite private and quiet about his personal life, which I understand and respect, but I wanted more...

More posts to come

[mmazzalai]

So... about my "how I got to know Phoenix's music" story...

I've come to learn that this band has been together making music for almost aa long as I've been alive,, however,, I didn't find out about the existence until merely 2 years ago (so sad,, I know). And how/where did thay happen?? While shopping in Walmart out of all places.

So, one afternoon around September 2022, there I was browsing through my local Walmart when a catchy tune starts playing at the store, I couldn't quite listen to it that well because it was the ambiance music, but I tried to make note of some of the lyrics so I could look it up later.

I got home, put the lyrics on Google, and the results gave me the wonderful song of #Lisztomania

I looked up the YouTube video, and immediately, I was hooked. I played that song on YouTube and Spotify on repeat over and over again for days, I couldn't stop. I learned the band's name and little information about them through the YouTube comments section.

Now, why did I keep listening to the same song instead of exploring more about them? See, I'm a person who suffers from anxiety and a trait that I have, which helps me feel comfortable, is that I consume mostly the same movies, series, books, music without branching out too much because I find calmness in what I know and stress to much over the what if's, besides, the song is a Banger!! I felt like I didn't need anything else.

Will continue in another post

[mmazzalai]

This picture made me feel things ✨️ inside 😅😅 so of course I had to make an edit of this beautiful man

Thought maybe today I could share a little about my story on how I became a #Phoenix fan

I know that there's no one reading this at the moment,, but maybe if Tumblr revives and later on we get some following,, the story will be kept here

And if not,, then at least I'd have something ti look back at while we wait for their return

[mmazzalai]

This band gives me life

Pictured: French indie rock band Phoenix

Left to right

Deck d'arcy

Thomas mars

Christian Mazzalai

Laurent Brancowitz

Sorry, I tried to look up the photo credits/date but couldn't find them.

[mmazzalai]

Paris 2024 Olympics

Phoenix presentation

When Thomas started to take his shirt off (he had another shirt underneath) my partner jokingly told me to cover my eyes... he didn't know I was looking at Chris the whole time

[mmazzalai]