Universal Music's boss pays unsuitable "tribute" to Georges Moustaki

French singer-songwriter Georges Moustaki died on Thursday at the age of 79.

As you would probably expect from an artist of his stature, there were many moving tributes.

The national daily Le Figaro called Moustaki "un artiste extraordinaire"

On her official page, the minister of culture, Aurélie Filippetti, paid homage to "the man who had composed for some of France's musical giants before revealing himself as a great interpreter of his own songs."

Given Moustaki's roots (both his parents came from Corfu) TF1 took perhaps the more "popular", but nonetheless fitting approach.

Alongside running a segment on Moustaki's career, the channel's prime time news sought the reactions of a couple other famous Greeks (in France).

A tearful Nana Mouskouri sang him a short "message of love" and TV presenter Nikos Aliagas remembered the "sincerity in his eyes".

Outside of France, international news organisations such as the BBC and Deutsche Welle ran pieces on their sites.

And the Director-General of UNESCO, Irina Bokova sent her condolences to Moustaki's family and friends in a statement on her official page.

Inevitably their were also tributes from the famous and the less well known on Twitter, expressing their sense of loss and admiration for the man, or simply linking to videos and performances of their favourite songs.

Everyone, it seemed, wanted to their pay respects to the man and his life - and quite rightly.

Except for one particular person. Pascal Nègre, the head of Universal Music, France - the label for which Moustaki recorded.

 Alongside calling Moustaki one of "the last legends, an artist and a poet" Nègre couldn't, it seems, resist reminding his 35,000 or so followers that Moustaki's works were available on Universal - ending his tasteful Tweet with RIP.

While many might view Nègre's Tweet as inappropriate (and indeed were soon poking fun at it in reply), he couldn't see anything wrong with what he had done.

"Why should I regret it?" he said.  "I paid tribute to an artist we were fortunate enough to produce and I simply gave information that we hold a lot of his musical catalogue."

Well, as you obviously need telling M. Nègre, it's called opportunism. And it's in pretty poor taste.





Georges Moustaki - Le facteur par kyssiane

Gloria - Les Prêtres are back in the French charts

Just when you perhaps thought it was safe to turn on your radio - they're back.

France's singing priests, Les Prêtres, once again have a top-selling album with their second offering "Gloria".

Les Prêtres (screenshot from Glorificamus Te video clip)

It's the follow up to their 2010 chart topper "Spiritus Dei", which has sold 800,000 copies so far, spent 10 - very long - weeks at number one, and is ominously climbing the charts once again.

"Gloria" entered at number one when it was released at the end of April, stayed there for four weeks before slipping a notch and then topped the pile again a fortnight later.

With the tried and tested formula used on their first album, Les Prêtres once again treat record-buyers to a mix of popular French standards and classical music with holy-ish lyrics.

The groups consists of two real life priests Jean-Michel Bardet and Charles Troesch and a former seminarist, Joseph Dinh Nguyen Nguyen, who has since decided not to follow his calling or studies, but pursue his faith by starting a family.

The voices of the warbling men of the cloth might not have improved much since their first album, but studio production has once again made up for any vocal failings they might have.

And the public seems to love it.

There are 14 tracks on the latest album including the annoying "Glorificamus Te" from Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake.

Perhaps we should be more thankful that they didn't don tutus and tights and pirouette their way through the accompanying video.



Other classical pieces given the religious "treatment" include Beethoven's "Ode to joy" or " Le Vent de l'Espoir" in French; a rendition which makes the version from Greek singer Nana Mouskouri sound almost sublime by comparison.

Oh all right let's not exaggerate. That was pretty awful too.

Ravel's "Bolero" becomes a whiny and thin "Au commencement" and poor old Beethoven (what did he do to deserve it?) has his piano sonata no. 8 in C minor, Op. 13 - more commonly known as Sonata Pathétique - magnificently cheesy-fied into "Mon enfant est parti".

If the classical tracks are awful, you might hope that the popular French standards would get off a little more lightly.

No such luck.

Jean-Jaques Goldman is a prolific singer-song writer and has scored hits for himself and others over the year (including a whole album for Céline Dion).

While his 1988 hit "Puisque tu pars" was hardly one to go down in the annals of music history, Les Prêtres manage a cover version that is truly hideous.

And when they turn their vocal cords to French singer Michel Sardou's emblematic "Les lacs du Connemara" it just sounds as though someone has been messing around with the turntable speeds.



And the rest of the album - all 14 tracks - are in the same vein; French standards crucified as only Les Prêtres (and their producers) know how and classical music served up as powerful religious mush with a beat.

Oh well, there's no accounting for taste and the French - well certain album-buying segments anyway - seem to love Les Prêtres.

Should you not yet have succumbed to this ecclesiastical makeover of hits ancient and modern and want to hear snippets of each track, just click here.

Or you can catch the trio in concert in towns and cities around France later this year, including one date at le Palais des Congrès in Paris in November.



Thankfully the number one slot is currently filled by the British singer Adele.

Amen.

But how long before Les Prêtres knock her off the top?