Friday's French music break - Boulevard des Airs, "Y siguen pasando"

If you like a Spanish flavour to your music, then you'll  probably enjoy this week's Friday's French music break.

It's "Y siguen pasando", a track taken from "Les Appareuses Trompences, the most recent album (released in 2013) by Boulevard des Airs (or BDA for short).

(screenshot from YouTube video)

On their official site, the nine-piece band describe themselves as "an alternative rock group", although with such diverse self-declared influences as Georges Brassens, Jacques Brel, Rage Against the Machine, Red Hot Chili Peppers and (inevitably perhaps) Manu Chao, their music is difficult to pigeon hole.

The lyric-driven tradition of the French "Chanson", reggae, ska, pop, rock and latin rhythm all figure in the group's assorted repertoire and they sing in French (of course) Spanish and English.

And the "group of mates", which includes brothers Florent and Jean-Noël Dasque, from the southwest of France aren't hard up for choice when it comes to mixing intrumentals into their music.

Accordion (don't groan) trumpet, trombone, clarinet, saxophone, piano, ukelele, guitar and drums all play their part and make those lives performances - and there have been plenty of them, because this is a group that thrives on the contact with its public - a real treat.

"We've more or less reached our goal, which was to be able to earn a living while making music," group member Sylvain Duthu said in a 2013 interview

"We've also had the chance to play a lot of concerts primarily in France and the reaction we've had from audiences acts as a spur for us to carry on."

The connection with the audience during concerts is probably the real strength of the group which formed in 2004: that and the fact that they all seem to be having a ruddy good time on stage (watch the second video which is a compilation of some of their live performances from 2013).

Little wonder then, that BDA were nominated in the category Group or Artist Stage Révélation of the Year in 2013 at Les Victoires de la Musique (losing out to multi-winners C2C).

BDA are currently in Madrid for a series of concerts but will be back in France, playing at a town near you, from the end of May.

http://bda-boulevarddesairs.com/dates-de-concerts-show-case/

Enough of the "Bla Bla" (incidentally, the title of their most recent single). Here's "Y siguen pasando" followed by that compilation of live performances from 2013.

Have a good weekend.

Friday's French music break - Yseult Onguenet, "Roar" and "Ne me quitte pas"

Friday's French music break this week is a double whammy from a singer who is just beginning her career.

It's Yseult Onguenet with her version of Katy Perry's "Roar" and Jacques Brel's "Ne me quitte pas".

Onguenet is one of the contestants this year in the TV talent show Nouvelle Star (the French equivalent of Pop Idol) currently being broadcast weekly on D8.

Now before you start groaning, give the format - and in particular Onguenet a chance.

Yseult Onguenet singing "Roar" (screenshot from D8 Nouvelle Star)

The 19-year-old is probably one of the favourites to win and she certainly seems to be the judges' pick.

But they've got it wrong before (and so has the viewing and voting public come to that).

Because the "collected works" of Star Academy, Nouvelle Star, X  Factor (which only ran for two seasons in France) Popstars and most recently The Voice have allowed some complete non-entities their proverbial 15 minutes and plus of fame.

But they've also provided the launching pad for some successful singers. Jenifer, Nolwenn Leroy, Élodie Frégé and the late Grégory Lemarchal from Star Academy.

While Nouvelle Star has, down the years, given us Christophe Willem, Julien Doré (both winners) as well as Amel Bent.

And Matt Pakora (winner) and Chimène Badi (eliminated because the producers thought her voice unsuitable to be part of the group they were looking to form) both owe their initial exposure to Popstars

Anyway back to Nouvelle Star, now down to the last five...including Onguenet

And it's not difficult to see why.

She opened the first prime time show with a rather rushed and not totally inspired version of Stromae's "Papaoutai". But that could perhaps be put down to nerves.

Since then though, Onguenet has blossomed, putting in one stunning performance after another

Sure, her choice of songs has sometimes been more than audacious, maybe even conceited, with renditions of Brel's "Ne me quitte pas" and "Comme d'habitude" by Claude François.

But it has also been varied with her tackling Lana del Rey's "Summertime sadness", Radiohead's "Creep" and Benjamin Biolay's "Ton héritage".

Yseult Onguenet singing "Ne me quitte pas" (screenshot from D8 Nouvelle Star)

Yes, this is a young woman who seems able to turn her vocal cords in whatever direction she chooses.

Her voice is distinctive. She has a great timbre and range and there's also the flavour of her Cameroonian roots (yes that sounds ridiculous, but listen) in some of her interpretations.

And each performance (even if it has been enhanced and produced for TV in spite of being live) has been a revelation.

Anyway put away any preconceived ideas you might have about TV talent shows and judge for yourselves.

Here are those two performances which (so far) stand out.

First up Katy Perry's 2013 hit "Roar" - which is exactly the full throttle approach Onguenet takes in her interpretation

And then Jacques Brel's much-(over) covered "Ne me quitte pas", into which she breathes ...well take a listen.

Un très bon week-end à toutes et tous!

Friday's French music break - Stromae, ""Papaoutai"

Time to own up.  Friday's French music break this week isn't French at all.

At least, it's not sung by a French artist.

It's the latest hit from Belgian singer-songwriter Paul Van Haver, who goes by the stage name of Stromae ("Maestro" in verlan).

Stromae (screenshot from interview with Marie Drucker on France 2 television, August 2013)

You might remember him from a couple of years ago, with his breakthrough  hit "Alors on danse" which made number one throughout much of Europe in 2010.

The 28-year-old is back with "Papaoutai" ("Papa où t'es?" or "Dad, where are you?") the debut track from his album released just last month "Racine Carrée".

"Papaoutai" has already peaked at number on here in France and the follow-up track, "Formidable" looks set to do the same.

It's not just the hypnotic combination of electronic music and hip hop  - the very essence of his music - that makes the song work so well.

It also has a distinctive rhythm or beat, and lyrics that'll probably resonate with anyone who has had a less-than easy relationship with their father.

Or, as his Facebook page says, "He applies more than ever a unique recipe: putting strong words to a catchy beat."

For example

"Tout le monde sait comment on fait les bébés
Mais personne sait comment on fait des papas"

Not bad for a "pop" song - are they? A modern-day Jacques Brel (it has been suggested) who has a knack for putting strong lyrics together with tunes that are not entirely what you would expect.

In this case the absence of a father with an almost joyous melody. A sort of musical counterpoint?

Anyway, Here's Stromae with ""Papaoutai"" - try to sit still while you listen.

And while you're about it, why not check out the follow-up "Formidable" (excellent song and video in its own right - take a look and a listen)

If you fancy seeing Stromae live, he's on tour throughout Belgium and France from November this year, with extra dates being added as some venues sell out. And he'll also be playing in Berlin and London next year.

Music Maestro!

No more French music on the Brussels metro

There'll be no more Jacques Brel on the metro in Brussels because French music has been banned.

Instead passengers will be fed a diet of English, Italian and Spanish songs.

Brussels metro train at station Rogier (from Wikipedia, author - Platte C)

There's that rather tedious and certainly chauvinistic game among some sectors of the English-speaking world to "name 10 famous Belgians" or even just a couple come to that.

Of course there are plenty - past and present - who have made their mark on the world in one way or another: Hergé, Audrey Hepburn, Eddy Merckx, Kim Clijsters, Rubens to name just a few.

And right now the president of the European Council is a Belgian, Herman Van Rompuy - although ask anyone on the street who the heck he is and the chances are most wouldn't have a clue.

There's even a website dedicated to the country's most famous sons and daughters, Famousbelgians.net - proof that Belgium is more than just chocolate, beer, waffles, French fries and mussels (not all at the same time of course).

On the music side there are plenty of names, foremost among them probably in the French-speaking world (and also known to a fair number of English speakers) is the late Jacques Brel, arguably one of the outstanding songwriters in French of his generation.

Who doesn't know the haunting but beautiful "Ne me quitte pas" - perhaps not his original recording but others' interpretations?



Born in the suburbs of Brussels in 1929, Brel was, and probably remains, one of the city's most famous sons, even if much of his adult life was spent in Paris.

All of which surely makes the decision by the operator of the city's metro to stop playing French music at its stations something of a shame.

Granted Brel might not have appeared on the playlist of international hits piped into the metro system's 69 stops by the metro operator Société des transports intercommunaux de Bruxelles (STIB) or (for the sake of linguistic correctness) Maatschappij voor het Intercommunaal Vervoer te Brussel (MIVB), but he made the odd appearance along with other French language singers.

Unfortunately this apparently upset Dutch-speakers among the capital's travellers, as An Van Hamme, a spokesperson for STIB/MIVB spokesman explained.

"In February we decided to try playing songs from an international hit list and although that meant predominantly English-language artists there was the occasional song in French but virtually none in Dutch," said Van Hamme.

"We received dozens of complaints from Dutch-speakers asking why we weren't playing the same number of Dutch-language songs as those in French."

Ah yes, that linguistic divide in a city which is very officially bilingual.

Street sign in Brussels - in French and Dutch of course

Not a very difficult question to answer - honestly. But a tricky one to deal with.

So STIB/MIVB has done the only thing it could under the circumstances.

It has dropped French songs (and the occasional Dutch one) entirely from a playlist which will now consist of those in English (70 per cent) Spanish and Italian (both 15 per cent).

Perhaps it should have simply stuck to classical music as it does after nine o'clock in the evening.

That would have kept everyone happy - or at least not have upset anyone.

Jacques Brel - Belgium's most famous son remembered (updated - see end)

On Wednesday a little bit of music history will go under the hammer at Sotheby's in Paris.

Personal memorabilia of the late Belgian singer, Jacques Brel, will be up for auction, including some of the most intimate souvenirs charting the life and work of the man.

And among the treasures will be a little yellowing exercise book containing the first draft of the lyrics for one of his best-known songs, "Amsterdam". Its guide price is €50,000.

Brel - for those who you who aren't familiar with the name - is arguably one of the greatest French-language songwriters of the last 50 years.

His work has often been described as "brooding", "dark" and "deep" and at the height of his success in the 1960s and 70s he composed songs that have more than stood the test of time and influenced many who followed.

Along with his contemporaries, Georges Brassens and Serge Gainsbourg, he was widely and critically acclaimed and considered as one of the outstanding songwriters of his generation.

His songs have been covered by countless (Francophone) artists and Brel even made a name for himself in the English-speaking world.

Brel died of cancer at the age of 49 in 1978 and Thursday will mark to the day the 30th anniversary of his death, with television, radio and press tributes both here in France and in Belgium.

And on the eve of that anniversary comes - as far as his family is concerned - the untimely auctioning off of some of his personal effects.

Concert posters, records, personal memorabilia, manuscripts and guitars are among the objects up for sale, and they've been on show in the run up to the auction since last weekend.

The majority of the items coming under the hammer on Wednesday are from the house he shared in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin in southern France during most of the 1960s and 70s with his partner at the time, Sylvie Rivet.

She died in 2002 - and it's her nephews and nieces (she had no children) who have decided to put everything up for sale to the highest bidder.

Brel's family (his former wife Thérèse Michielsen, nicknamed "Miche", now in her eighties and his three daughters, Chantal, France and Isabelle) is far from happy that the auction is taking place at all, and the middle of his daughters, France, tried to prevent the break-up of the collection and keep it in the family by proposing an undisclosed sum beforehand.

The offer was rejected.

She's in charge of Editions Brel, which looks after the Jacques Brel foundation as well as much of the copyright and his musical legacy. And she had some harsh words to say about the auctioning of her father's personal effects and the fact that she thought Rivet's relatives seemed more interested in making money than the importance of what her father had left behind.

"One day Jacques walked out on a woman and went to buy a packet of cigarettes. He never returned," she is quoted as saying.

"When that woman died, her relatives discovered an enormous number of things that they're now putting up for auction.

"They're going to sell manuscripts that will end up in a safe or in a drawer. That's deplorable."

The auction is expected to raise between €340,000 and €470,000 with that small yellowing exercise book containing the original manuscript to "Amsterdam" being the most sought after.

But other items include a poster from 1965, when he played New York's Carnegie Hall and was billed as "The Popular French Singer" giving rise to Brel's rather tart retort "it's not easy being Belgian."

There's also a recording of the last concert he held at Olympia in Paris in 1966

Although Brel died in Paris, he is today buried on Hiva Oa one of the Marquesas Islands in French Polynesia - his home for many years - in the same cemetery as the French painter Paul Gaugin.

And it was on Hiva Oa that a flying club - Brel was also a passionate pilot - has recently been opened bearing his name.

Even if you neither speak nor understand a word of French, click on to the two videos accompanying this piece and listen to a couple of haunting, but beautiful songs, "Ne me quitte pas" and "Amsterdam".

I know that probably counts as an opinion - but I challenge anyone to argue otherwise.


Ne me quitte pas




Amsterdam




Update Thursday October 9, 2008

The auction surpassed the expected €340,000 - 470,000 total, with the whole collection going for a whopping €1.27 million. And that at a time when the financial markets are nosediving!

The manuscript for "Amsterdam" alone fetched €110,000.

The reaction from Brel's widow; "It's an inheritance - not something that should be sold. It's a shame and rather embarrassing."