All-too-short perfume spot, but eyecandy all the way, plus the right bedroom sound.
Articles Written By: Sky
L’amour à la Gainsbourg
Adjani lookalike Caroline Grimm recorded this one, an élastiquely carribean-ized disco-pop number that made my sister buy her first dessous on Ibiza in 1988.
FS Rerun: Sarah Nixey
Though Sarah Nixey is British, she’s a fille to boot, levitating effortlessly between the realms of innocence and lasciviousness, the subversive and the sublime. With Black Box Recorder – assisted by Luke Haines of Auteurs fame and John Moore, ex-Jesus & Marychain –, she recorded three of the smartest, though too much neglected pop CDs of the last decade. French Rock’n’Roll from Recorder’s brilliant second record Facts of Life echoes the spirit of Jane & Serge, London-style, and features even a few lines in French:
Black Box Recorder – French Rock’n’Roll
Solo, Sarah also did a trippy club cover of Francoise Hardy’s hit Le temps de l’amour, written by Hardy’s future husband Jacques Dutronc in 1962, and Ici avec toi, a gauloised-up translation of her original song When I’m Here With You.
Sarah Nixey – Le temps de l’amour
Last not least, another of Sarah’s French connections from the compilation The Worst of Black Box Recorder: Her version of Terry Jacks’ weeper superhit Seasons of the Sun – cover of Jacques Brel’s classic chanson Le Moribond – reverberating an entirely different quality: the dizzy state when awakening from a already half-forgotten dream.
Black Box Recorder – Seasons in the Sun
Ödland – Cecidomyiidae
Nicely done video for the brand new 7″ by FS favorites Ödland. Face A, Cecidomyiidae, is a stoned-out Cheshire Cat’s grin of a song, face B, La floraison des bambous, an odd mix of chanson, chamber music, and babypop. I love this stuff, but cannot shake off the feel that it’s more of the same. 200 signed and numbered copies which can be ordered via the band’s website.
Gladys Pink
Few people remember Detroit all-Latino garage band ? and The Mysterians, though they had a #1 smash hit with 96 Tears on the Billboard Hot 100 and sold more than a million (!) copies in 1966. The 7“ generally is regarded as proto-punk and was also featured on the famous first Nuggets compilation. 12 years later the song was covered by Belgian unknowns Gladys Pink who replaced the delirious vox organ of the original with a vicious accordion and recorded one of the most sensational and completely unnoticed singles ever to come from the Lowlands. No need for French lingo here. The spirit should be enough.
Gladys Pink – 96 Tears
Yearlist 2010 by Sky
Great year, fantastic filles, awesome albums, terrific tunes. Here we go:
1. Various Artists – Je Deteste Serge. This is it. The (illegal) album that had the highest rotation at my château this year. 19 strikingly artistic and intertextual killer tracks blending Serge G. with Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Sugarhill Gang, Biggie, and loads of others. Bâtard Pop Heaven – for download still available.
DJ Y alias JY – Skee-lo and Clyde
2. Ödland – Ottocento. Lorenzo Papace is the mad hatter behind this absinth-soaked, tenderly hypnotic (and quite humorous) 19th-century-fantasy, Alizée Bingöllü (pictured) the most sexy voice you’ll ever hear from behind the mirror. The album ist just like her: Little girl eyes, big girl ideas.
Ödland – De l’autre côte de miroir
3. Élodie Frégé – La Fille de L’après-midi. She can do without Biolay, and easily. A concept album like a trois-accents-promise, much better than its predecessor, amazingly uncompromising, full of high-class songwriting, suspense, and drama. The record that made Guuz a poet. Ravissante indeed.
Élodie Frégé – La fille de l’après-midi
4. Fabienne Delsol – On My Mind. While nobody noticed, Fabienne clandestinely took April March’s place in girlpopdom. Sixties mood, simple but irresistible melodies, lost love dreamscapes, Rick Nelson feel, fuzz guitars and that certain not-so-innocent voice. Only two tracks en Français here. Somebody who cares?
5. Cécile Hercule – La Tête à L’Envers. Lots more versatile and inventive, Cécile is outsmarting everybody’s darling ZAZ by far. Wooing and cooing as a premier art form, and Enfin should have been a huge hit. For the bedroom, and some of those things beyond.
French Christmas Corn
Remember those December 24 days when you had to earn your presents? When your Mom put on some record and you were forced to sing along to some way uncool tunes about silent nights, trickling snowflakes and the birth of Christ? This year, you can show your kids that Christmas is some serious issue: With Annie Lennox’s brand new album A Christmas Cornucopia, chock-full of devotional, stone cold sober hymns from the eurythmical realm where camp and Kunstlied meet. Caution: Do not play after Christmas dinner. The content of your stomach might take its toll.
Annie Lennox – Il est né le divin enfant
Nice version from 2007:
Tom Tom Club – Il est né le divin enfant
Le Pop 6
Though Messieurs Oliver Fröschke and Rolf Witteler operate from Cologne’s Quartier Belge, they have an avid schtick for music from France. True heroes, the German slacker impresarios were among the very first to discover the charm of the Nouvelle Scène Francaise in 2002 – the first Le Pop compilation (featuring Burgalat, Keren Ann and Benjamin B.) was nothing less than a revelation and sold a felt one million copies in my neighborhood. Eight years and four follow-ups later, Le Pop 6 maybe doesn’t contain the same sense of wonder, but a bag of goodies all the way, featuring premier stuff like Tom Poisson’s countryfied „Trapéziste“, Marianne Dissard’s slowly building groove-fest „The One and Only“, and my favorite, Toma’s „Je bois la mer“, a solemn recapturing of old school electronica, and a splendid love song.
Toma – Je bois la mer
Pop Bâtard XV: C’est le vent, Serge
“Mash ups/ Bastard pop is a musical genre which, in its purest form, consists of the combination (usually by digital means) of the music from one song with the acapella from another. Typically, the music and vocals belong to completely different genres. At their best, bastard pop songs strive for musical epiphanies that add up to considerably more than the sum of their parts”, writes Markyboy on his highly recommended website, and if you’re not familiar with the genre, that’s quite a spot-on definition. On Je t’aime quand le vent souffle, he fuses Serge’s everlasting “Every time I put my shirt back on, she takes it off again” hymn to BB with I’ll Leave When the Wind Blows by Oklahoma neo-soft rockers All American Rejects. A smooth one which works just fine.
Markyboy – Je t’aime quand le vent souffle
FS Rerun: La Valente
This one appeared for the first time on the old blog in our Cahiers du Cinéma series, without the new extras.
Italian brunette Caterina Valente isn’t very famous for her movies, though she appeared in a good dozen, her first one being the prostitution melodrama Party Girls for Sale a.k.a. They Were So Young – released in 1954, the same year she hit it grand with her German version of Cole Porter’s I Love Paris, re-titled Ganz Paris träumt von der Liebe (The Whole of Paris Dreams of Love) and selling more than half a million copies.
Most of Valente’s hits came from the German Schlager alley, a back street of pop most people rightly fear to tread. However, Bonjour Kathrin from the same-titled 1956 Valente movie is a charming example of how to fuse a German language song with French flair. No wonder: Actually La Signora had started out à Paris, and in the late 50s came back with some recordings in French, among them the irresistible Un p’tit Béguine – supremely seductive stuff, easily on a par with the divine Connie Francis who also took her turn at Gallic sentiments in 1965.
Caterina Valente – Bonjour Kathrin
Caterina Valente – Un p’tit Béguine
Connie Francis – La vie en rose
Bonus speziale: Caterina’s French language version of the all-time classic Fever, written in 1955 by Otis Blackwell, first recorded by bluesman Little Willie John a year later and immortalized by Peggy Lee in 1958. When Caterina is talking trente-neuf, it sounds like a position Peggy never knew.
Caterina Valente – 39 de fièvre
Bonus extra speziale: La Valente’s French version of Paul Anka’s Put Your Head on my Shoulder. Sighing sighs, holding hands.
Caterina Valente – Prouve-moi que tu m’aimes