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JOHNNY HALLYDAY

Johnny Hallyday: French rock fans queue up for posthumous album

Fans of French rocker Johnny Hallyday, whose death last year sparked a nationwide outpouring of emotion, queued outside record stores on Thursday night to get their hands on his posthumous album.

Published: 19 October 2018 09:25 CEST
Johnny Hallyday: French rock fans queue up for posthumous album
Photo: AFP
Some 800,000 copies of “Mon pays c'est l'amour” (My Country is Love) went on sale at midnight.
   
Warner studios said they expect Hallyday's 51st studio album to go platinum (100,000 sales) within minutes.
   
A hundred fans were waiting outside a store on the Champs-Elysees in Paris for the much-awaited record.
 
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Photo: AFP

The musician's widow Laeticia Hallyday posted a message online to mark the event, signing off with “to the freedom of thinking, to your music, I love you 
forever”.
   
The cover features a black-and-white picture of France's answer to Elvis Presley, with a hand on one hip, staring off into the distance. 
   
Hallyday, who had been a star since the 1960s, died from lung cancer at 74.
   
His death sparked a bitter inheritance feud between his two biological children, Laura Smet and David Hallyday, and his widow Laeticia.
 
His last album — a mix of rock, rockabilly and blues — was caught up in the battle, with the two children demanding a right of review.
   
A court dismissed their request.

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MUSIC

Posthumous Hallyday album sells 300,000 on first day

French rocker Johnny Hallyday's posthumous album sold 300,000 copies on Friday after going on sale at midnight, the late star's record company Warner Music France told AFP.

Published: 20 October 2018 00:28 CEST
Posthumous Hallyday album sells 300,000 on first day
Fans of the late French singer Johnny Hallyday buy albums on Friday. Photo: FRANCOIS NASCIMBENI / AFP
Fans of the singer, whose death last year sparked a nationwide outpouring of emotion, queued outside record stores on Thursday night to get their hands on the album.
 
Warner, which said the sales figure did not include downloads from streaming platforms, had earlier predicted that “Mon pays c'est l'amour” (My Country is Love) would go platinum (100,000 sales) within minutes of going on sale.
 
Hallyday's 1999 album “Sang pour Sang” (“Blood for Blood”), sold two million after selling 230,000 copies on its first day.
 
Hallyday, who had been a star since the 1960s, died from lung cancer in December aged 74.
 
His death sparked a bitter inheritance feud between his two biological children, Laura Smet and DavidHallyday, and his last wife Laeticia. Laeticia Hallyday on Friday said she had been trying to negotiate with the pair.
 
“We are trying (but) it is complicated, because a lot of things have been orchestrated,” she told the TF1 television channel.
 
“There is a lot of hate, contempt, humiliation, lies, which hurts. It's difficult to hear, it's difficult to suffer that,” she added.