Spotify playlist
You might know about my French pop 2012 playlist on Spotify, yesterday I added a French (singing) girls only list. HERE. Including Ludivine.
Françoise Hardy
The new album and the new novel are out. Listen to a beautiful new song below.
Françoise Hardy – Si vous n’avez rien à me dire…
Benjamin Biolay
Benjamin Biolay‘s new album Vengeance is out today, featuring duets with Vanessa Paradis, Julia Stone, Carl Barat and rappers Oxmo Puccino and OrelSan. It’s the follow up to the, err, superbe La Superbe, the ambitious, versatile and amazing double album from 2010. This time, it sounds like Benjamin got stuck in writer’s block. Vengeance lacks good ideas, memorable melodies. Ben reaches back to the 80s, referring to The Cure and other new wave act with their bleak drums and reverb-drenched guitars. The song with Carl Barat, in which Ben tries to sing in English, is frankly godawful. Julia en ‘Nessa can’t don’t make any juices running with their guest-vocals. The Spanish track makes me cringe as well. I’ve read favourable reviews, but to me Vengeance falls flat on it’s face. When you’ve set the bar as high as Ben has in the past, with masterpieces like La Superbe, HOME and Négatif, gold is expected from you. Not gold dust.
Benjamin Biolay & Vanessa Paradis – Profite
Metal Gainsbourg
No, it’s not a joke. Swedish goth metalband Therion just released an album with covers of French 60s and 70s popsongs. Featuring a few Gainsbourg-tracks: Poupée de cire, Initials BB and Les Sucettes. Among tracks made famouse by Sylvie Vartan, Marie Laforet and others (see tracklist here). Therion’s not the first loud band to cover Gainsbourg (see FN Guns’ Les Sucettes, Rummelsnuff’s Bonnie & Clyde, for instance), but Therion’s versions are hilarious. Unintentionally, I guess, but still. Their ‘Initials BB’ is okay, but try ‘n keep a straight face while listening to this. Then imagine a corpsepainted, leather-clad crowd banging their heads to it. Even their fans aren’t sure what to think of it.
As a teen I listened to a lot of hardrock and metal (Judas Priest, Motörhead, Metallica, etc), but when I hear Therion, I think of the bestest metalparody ever.
Therion – Initials BB
Daphné chante Barbara
‘Singing Barbara is like an actor playing Don Juan, or Le Misanthrope’, writes Daphné about her new album with 13 covers of the legendary lady in brown. Her dark chansons are classic material, Daphné’s not the first to do a cover, and certainly not the last. She has two duet-partners, Benjamin Biolay (who helped start her career) is sprinkling his Casanovian charm all over Dis, Quand Reviendras-Tu, while Dominique A. backs her up in Göttingen. I’m a fan of Daphné, not that familiar with Barbara’s back catalogue (though I adore Nantes). I guess D.’s adding a tad more hope, or light at the end of the tunnel, than Barbara in the original versions. I never thought of Dis… being a sexy song, Daphné and Ben pull it off.
Speaking of Biolay, I wouldn’t hold my breath about his upcoming album. BIG disappointment. Lacks ideas, lacks memorable melodies, under par production. Even Vanesse Paradis, Carl Barat and La Grande Sophie Julia Stone can’t lift this out of muddy mediocrity. More on Vengeance later.
Daphné & Biolay – Dis, Quand Reviendras-Tu?
Original version (video)
Fouxi
NEW Fouxi single (you remember her, wrote about her earlier, she’s on one of my compilations and Francoise Hardy covered her!)
Loureb & K
On the cover, she looks like Françoise Hardy. Lou-Rebecca teamed up with K, aka Etienne Kerber of Les Shades, to record an EP called Born in the 90s featuring tracks inspired by music (Dylan) and films from the 60s (Truffaut, Rohmer, Godard). To confuse you even more, I’d like to add the compliment of compliments on this site: ‘Lio-esque’. Which means some tracks on that EP have that sweet smelling bubblegum 80s flavour. Anyhoo – watch and listen and think of your own reference.
See more of Lou-Rebecca here, more Loureb & K here and here.
Loureb & K – Nouvelle Vague
Alex & Alizée
Serge Gainsbourg, Lee Hazlewood and Edwyn Collins are his favourite artists, his dream was to record a French duet. American sharp dressed guitarplayer, singer and music lover (he plays with the brilliant Extra Golden) Alex Minoff asked his French-born cartoon-drawing friend Alizée de Pin to lend her Laetitia Sadier-ish voice for a rockabilly-guitar driven track. Think Mustang, think Del Shannon, think quality.