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| From | Richard Gagnon <gasp@aga.ca> |
| Subject | French Stuff |
| Date | Fri, 1 Aug 2003 00:31:06 -0400 |
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Monsieur Gerard wrote:
>PS : about french stuff, please forget a few seconds Gainsbourg, Gall and
>Bardot, try Michel Polnareff, Ronnie Bird, Jacques Dutronc. For
>Gainsbourg, trust
>me, the best stuff is "Melody Nelson" and "l'homme à la tete de chou"
>cheers
Ah, that's nice to hear.
>Then Jean-Marc wrote:
>I second that. Someone also wrote about Jacques Brel. His music was not pop.
>Brel was a poet and you won't dig him if you cannot understand french.
So true. There's so much great stuff that just escapes non-francos
(*and* a lot of francophones, frankly)...Brel, Brassens, Ferré, Les
Frères Jacques, Boris Vian, Beart, Reggiani...it's just a whole
different aesthetic. Still, Marc Almond seems to have a good grasp of
some of these guys...his Absinthe album tackles some good "poet"
stuff. I still think his Brel album is a failure, though. I'll stick
with Scott Walker for *that* material.
Oddly enough, the French *do* get Bob Dylan.
And, dammit, I'm so sick of ole Serge. He did some excellent early
work, but most of his career, methinks, was just so much farting in a
bag. One of the best examples of The Emperor's New Clothes I've ever
seen and heard. Comic Strip? Eek.
Rhetorical question: what's worse, a Frenchman who wants to be Tom
Waits, or an Englishman who wants to be Serge Gainsbourg? (I'm
thinking Arthur H and Momus, but there's other candidates, and lots
of Americans and at least one Australian who want to be Leonard
Cohen...)
Richard
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