Meanwhile, in the manner of the best Latin-American telenovelas, Endemol had been busy building an image for Nolwenn as the capricious young diva. In marketing terms Nolwenn was designed to appeal to a much wider audience than Jenifer, the Star Academy winner of 2001. While Jenifer has been styled to appeal to the kiddy market, Nolwenn is aimed at a more adult market thanks to her mature vocals and more ‘womanly’ look. The press have also made much of Nolwenn’s clean lifestyle – the young star recently went on the record claiming, "I’ve never drunk alcohol or smoked and I’ve never really gone out much either!" Readers of French glamour mags and gossip rags also know that Nolwenn was abandoned by her footballer father at an early age, given enormous support from her mother, her young sister Kay and her little dog Milou etc. etc.

Now it’s time for the "Dark Angel" to move on to the next stage of her career and consolidate her image with a first album. Universal called in a crack songwriting team for the production of Nowlenn’s debut which included French star Pascal Obispo and top songwriters Lionel Florence and Elizabeth Anaïs. And the team just took a few weeks to get the songs ready (a fact that apparently much irritated the lovely Nolwenn who was frustrated at not having been more involved in the preparation of her first studio album!) What’s more, things continued at a hectic pace with the recording sessions finished in just one week. Meanwhile, there was a minor panic on board the Universal ship – the name Nolwen had already been copyrighted by a Celtic singer so the Star Academy winner had to be reinvented as Nolwenn Leroy (taking her mother’s maiden name).

Nolwenn’s debut album finds the jet-haired beauty in a melancholy mood, alternately crooning then belting out her songs against a background of swirling strings and grand orchestral arrangements. The first single release, Cassé, gives full range to the young singer’s vocals, allowing her to show off her prowess at the top of her lungs. While many critics have regretted that so many of the big female "voices" on the current French scene have been imported from Quebec, Nolwenn Leroy just goes to prove that there has been at least one potential diva lurking in the French countryside. And, if there were any doubt about that, Nolwenn’s album opens with a show-stopping number composed by Francis Maggiuli (ex-member of the Charts with Calogero) with lyrics by Lionel Florence (legendary songwriter on the Mercury label).