No, this ain’t the yearlist to end all yearlists. Actually, it was quite an interesting year, full of sleepers, slumbersome French kisses and somnolent earworms. In short, a year to wake up. It was called 2011. So, eleven for a year to remember. There you are:
11. Daphné, Moi plus vouloir dormir seule. I can’t recall any other tune from her Bleu Venise album, but you won’t get more eternity for your money.
10. DJ Le Clown, Making Plans for Houston. Not from 2011, I think, but a premier mashup hooker of a song. Sadly, the YT video meanwhile was banned due to sexual content. Serge vs. Whitney vs. XTC. Jan Willem commented: „Houston, we have a problem.“
09. Marie-Pierre Arthur, Pourquoi. The Quebec No. 1 indie smash hit that never was. Poptastic one, and Marie-Pierre’s not even my type. See also Buck 65 below.
Video here.
08. Vaea Sylvain/ François de Roubaix, Mareva. A song from the Mid-60s I’ve listened to a thousand times this year, and not available on the net. I met Vaea Sylvain in November in Paris, and it’s a long story. Maybe I’ll tell you some day. Maybe.
07. Nous Non Plus, Bunga Bunga. Album: Freudian Slip. The best intertextual popster band since Dutch Gruppo Sportivo in the 80s, this time with an irresistible hommage to Silvio, Imperator of the Italian Orgy.
Video here.
06. Slove, Carte Postale. Electro isn’t dead. The singer’s name is Sarah Krebs, and for 3:20 min, you can have sex, not with her, of course, but with this tune. It feels exactly like she says: „Superbien.“
05. Benjamin Biolay, Le Bonheur, Mon Cul. The album was, erm, shitty, but this is Biolay’s metamorphosis into God, and that God is fat, sweaty, sleazy, and burns up 1000 rubbers per night. Best chanson title of the year. God’s name is Barry White, for sure.
04. L, Initiale. Mademoiselle Mélo on the boulevard of broken lolitas and bohemiens, and undoubtedly the most consistent French album of the year.
03. Buck 65, Tears of My Heart. Le Nouveau Western meets Piaf and Gréco in Buck 65’s supreme collaboration with lovely Olivia Ruiz. Yo, big one. Album also features Marie-Pierre Arthur, see entry no. 9.
02. Siobhan Wilson, La Javanaise. Her 2010 debut already featured Brel’s Voir un ami pleurer, and except for Serge’s emissions avant-prèmieres version, there has been no better version of La Javanaise in fifty years.
01. La Femme, Sur la Planche. It didn’t get more hypnotic, more sexy, more sonic or more convincing in 2011, and the Biarritz-based band – a cross between the B-52’s and a knife sharpener – isn’t even signed yet. They call that sound Tropical Wave, but its other name is Retro Heaven. And that (see left) was the cover.
„Summer rain in Paris, and the cool sound of Miles Davis“ – German chanteuse Céline Rudolph certainly is no literary virtuoso, but who cares for lyrics anyway? Her most recent album gathers 11 songs by the late Henri Salvador, kind of a Gallic Nat King Cole jack-of-all-trades who did all too many ditties for a fistful of Francs. Frau Rudolph catapults Salvador directly into the feelgood realm of her favorite women’s magazines, with the help of some Brazilian players who obviously think that Saudade is a new brand of fabric softener – registered trademark of the Snuggly Products Corporation, with guaranteed 14 days of fresh scent. Only my ill-mannered three-year-old nephew says it stinks.
