Friday's French music break - Garou, "Le jour se lève"

Friday's French music break this week this week is a song recently crowned "record of the year" 2012

It's ""Le jour se lève" taken from the album "Rhythm and Blues" in which the Canadian crooner Garou (real name, Pierre Garand) makes his growling mark on a number of standards in both English and French, as he covers remakes that he would have been best advised to leave well alone.

Now, how exactly Garou managed to walk off with the title "record of the year" with "Le jour se lève" remains something of a mystery.

Garou (screenshot from video clip for "Le jour se lève")

Perhaps it was the phenomenal commercial success of the track.

After all, even in these days in which singles aren't really a measure of popularity, "Le jour se lève" only managed to peak at 115 in the French charts.

There again, maybe it was all down to the success of the single in neighbouring Belgium - where it reached number 22.

Of course Garou's win could have been because of the low standard of the other artists in the running for the title: among them international no-hopers Rihanna ("Diamonds") and Birdy ("Skinny love") or a clutch of Francophone singers, including Matt Pokora, Jenifer, Shy’m, Tal, Marc Lavoine and Amel Bent - all of whom had achieved greater singles chart success in France during 2012.

But wait. Who was making the award?

Oh. It was France's largest private channel TF1, filliing up the schedules with a pre-recorded programme during the holiday period.

Isn't Garou also one of the judges in the second series of "The Voice" due to be broadcast on the very same TF1 in early February?

Well, what do you know. Yes he is. But of course that cannot possibly have played a part in a vote determined by the public from the list of nominees before the competition got underway.

Ergo all definitely very correct and aboveboard and 40-year-old Garou, who first shot to prominence in France for his performance as Quasimodo in the hit musical Notre Dame de Paris in 1998, walked away with yet another award to add to his collection.

What? You've never heard of the musical? Well maybe that's not surprising.

It ran and ran in France, made stars of several of its performers and transferred equally well to Canada. But when it opened in London, the welcome was less than enthusiastic with Independent going all Sun-like in its headlines and describing it as ""A load of old bells".

http://www.londontheatre.co.uk/londontheatre/reviews/notredame00.htm

Anyway, back to "Le jour se lève", a truly wondrous remake of a song originally recorded by Israeli singer Esther Galil in 1971 - when it really was an international hit (sales of more than five million in Europe).

If you didn't like it first time around...the chances are that Garou's snarling interpretation won't do much for you either.

Have a great weekend.

A new song from Carla Bruni-Sarkozy

Music lovers pin back your ears, the rumours have been confirmed.

France's first lady, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, has been back in the recording studio.

This time around though it has not been as a singer but as a songwriter.

Bruni-Sarkozy has written one of the tracks for the upcoming album of one of this country's first "girls of rock 'n roll" and now a long-established star of the French musical scene, Sylvie Vartan.

A former wife of (French) rock music icon Johnny Hallyday, Vartan's new album, "Toutes peines confondues" is due for release on September 14, and among the tracks composed especially for her is "Je chante le blues" penned by none other than Bruni-Sarkozy.

In what is probably one of this country's worst-kept recent music industry secrets, an extract from the recording was played on national radio on Tuesday morning with the "revelation" that it would be "Vartan's first single to be taken from the upcoming album.

What's more it's Bruni-Sarkozy first "new" song since becoming first lady and taking up residence at the president's Elysée palace. Although she released her own album - her third - "Comme si de rien n'etait" last July, the bulk of those songs were written before she had even met the French president.

Even though Vartan's decision to release the track as her first single might have been something of a scoop for radio listeners on Wednesday morning, the same cannot be said for the news that the two women had been working together.

Back in March, the weekly news magazine, L'Express, told its readers that the Bulgarian-born 64-year-old (Vartan) had asked the Italian-born 41-year-old (Bruni-Sarkozy) to write a song for her and that the deed had been done and the track recorded.

There's even an extract that has been up and playing on YouTube since March, although it has so far only received a little over 10,000 hits.



For Bruni-Sarkozy lovers and/or those of you who enjoyed the breathless, gasping sounds of the French first lady's voice and gentle guitar strumming on "Comme si de rien n'etait" the new single from Vartan will have more than a familiar ring to it.

Except that is for the voice, which as you can hear is most definitely NOT that of the model-turned singer-turned first lady.

All that can be hoped perhaps is that Vartan's album, with other tracks written by well-known and successful French singer-songerwriters such as Marc Lavoine and Didier Barbelivien won't have the same lacklustre record sales as Bruni-Sarkoy's last offering.

Even though it officially achieved domestic sales of over 185,000, that figure took into account albums still on stock in the stores, a common practice for the music industry to massage the real figures (you can read about that here).

Vartan's new single and album are to be released to coincide with a series of concerts she'll be giving in Paris in September.