You are:
The music group, Eiffel 65
I'm from Italy, yet I speak English
The three members of the group are all Italian, yet they sing in English
On top of that, my name is French
The group’s name hails from the Eiffel Tower in Paris
I hail back from the late nineties galore
Their big breakthrough came in 1999 with their album Europop
Last in 2016 did I release lore
Panico/Critical was released in Spring 2016
Until then it has been a decade
But we never truly did fade
Prior to that they had not released anything since 2004. However, in the meantime they continued to tour.
One of us is the key
One of us flies the wind
One of us controls sound
Together we are a force, world round
Maurizio Lobina is a keyboardist, Jeffrey Jey is the vocalist and Gabry Ponte is a DJ, remixer and record producer. As an ensemble act they enjoyed international success.
Back in my time, I was popular
Now the world I know seems not to know me not so much anymore
Eiffel 65 had great success as a pop act, hitting number 1 in many countries with their songs. However, these days they are arguably not as well known... These two lines also reference their songs Back In Time and Johnny Grey (lyric: 'the world I know seems not to know me') from their album Contact!
Too much of heaven can bring you down
I know because it made me so blue
Too Much of Heaven is one of their singles, Blue (Da Ba Dee) is another
After the crash, we bloomed again
But we not whole after that
After finishing recording their 4th album Crash Test, in 2005 Gabry Ponte left the group to embark on a solo career. The remaining members continued to perform but under a new name: Bloom 06 (releasing the album under this name as Crash Test 01).
Then the bloom went and we came again
After Bloom 06 the group reformed as Eiffel 65 in 2010
But even as we still are that,
We still soon fell by one more
Ponte later re-left the group, in the sense that he no longer performs or records with them (although he is still listed as an official member, I believe).
In addition, we have a "secret" member
Who's been with us since we began
We were once enemies, but now we're friends
Four times he has appeared
Three with us and one on his own
Can you find all four occurrences?
This refers to ‘Zorotl’, a blue alien character who features in the videos for Blue (Da Ba Dee), Move Your Body and Lucky (In My Life). He was originally intended to be an adversary but when he was animated he looked too endearing and the music video for Blue (Da Ba Dee) instead gave him a happy ending, singing on-stage with the group. Zorotl proved so popular he in effect became a virtual band (akin to Gorillaz) and had his own single I Wanna Be.
As for the title itself:
Blue (Da Ba Dee) begins with the line 'Yo listen up, here's the story...'
