Popular Music in Contemporary France: Authenticity, Politics, Debate

Popular Music in Contemporary France: Authenticity, Politics, Debate
(Berg French Studies Series)
by David L. Looseley

# Paperback: 256 pages
# Publisher: Berg Publishers (March 1, 2003)

While music lovers from all over the world have tried to recreate the ambience of French cafés by playing music from stars such as Piaf, Trénet and Chevalier, intellectuals, sociologists and policy makers in France have been embroiled in passionate debate about just what constitutes 'real' French music. In the late 1950s and 1960s a wave of Anglo-American rock 'n' roll and pop hit Europe and disrupted French popular music forever. The cherished sounds of the chanson were sidelined, fragmented or merged with pop styles and instrumentation. From this point on, French music and music culture have been splintered into cultural divides - pop culture vs high culture; mass culture vs 'authentic' popular culture; national culture vs Americanization. This book investigates the exciting and innovative segmentation of the French music scene and the debates it has spawned. From an analysis of the chanson as national myth, to pop, rap, techno and the State, this book is the first full-length study to make sense of the complexity behind the history of French popular music and its relation to 'authentic' cultural identity.

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TO KILL A PETTY BOURGEOISIE - "THE PATRON" [2007]

Review from bolachas gratis

tracklist:
1. Patron
2. Man with the Shovel, Is the Man I'm Going to Marry
3. Lovers & Liars
4. Long Arms
5. Dedicated Secretary, Liaison, Passionate Mother
6. I Box Twenty
7. You Guys Talk, We'll Spill Our Guts
8. With Brass Songs They'll Descend
9. Very Lovely
10. Window Shopping

Written by Creaig Dunton
Sunday, 07 October 2007

One wouldn't expect a disc with pretty pastel shades on the cover to just be so dark and ominous on the inside, but even the gentle female vocals add to this dense, disturbing haze of an album that is difficult to specifically pin down, but its brilliance makes that unnecessary, and what is left has to be one of the most ominous and captivating records I have heard all year

Kranky
Some combinations seem like a natural fit, and others, on the surface, seem completely absurd. As a kid, I remember a kindergarten snack of apples and cheese one morning sounded absolutely atrocious. However, I gave it a try and, well, it was pretty damn good.

Mixing ethereal female vocals with full on digital noise also sounds, superficially, like a bad fit, but it is not. In fact, it works just as well as the aforementioned childhood snack. The ten tracks across this disc do have that strange combination. The gentle, ethereal vocals of Jenha Wilhelm appear alongside the blasting, shredding electronic sounds of Mark McGee like a lone human in a world of machinery gone mad. In some cases, the tracks transition from a gentle introduction into a harsh ending, like the guitar & vocals that open "Lovers & Liars," which segue into a blasting harsh noise burst that can only be described as the unholy paring of Lush and Wolf Eyes. Though structurally the noise elements are more restrained and less junky than the boys from Michigan, the electronics still manage to evoke the same sense of disorientation, dread, and oppression, but in a more subtle manner.

Others focus less on blasting electronics and more on subtle treatments, like the vaguely IDM rhythms that back the noisy (but less aggressively so) "The Man With The Shovel, Is The Man I’m Going To Marry." There are also moments of pure ambience, like the thick, hazy, drumless space that opens "Very Lovely" before the strong rhythm comes in at the end. Probably the most shocking moment comes in "I Box Twenty," with the mostly conventional, non-electronic backing which, with the overt guitars and bass, almost resembles a more rock focused Portishead.

If there were a single word description that would fit this album, it would be 'textural.' In some cases, the electronic textures are almost so thick as to be tactile and tangible: the noises of "Long Arms" are like jagged rocks enshrouded in soft, thick gauze, a haze of buzz and squeal over a low end distorted crunch. The long titled, but short length "Dedicated Secretary, Liaison, Passionate Mother" is a short instrumental of modem connect tones, and a sense of slow drift, like Pangaea separating to the Earth as we know it today.

The Patron is a disorienting album that reveals more and more layers of itself with subsequent listens, and one of the most exciting discs I have had the pleasure to spin recently.

Here is the album for free via nodatta
Myspace

http://tokillapettybourgeoisie.us/

French Art Songs of the 19th-Century

French Art Songs of the Nineteenth-Century:
Thirty-Nine Works from Berlioz to Debussy
compiled by Philip Hale

GEORGES BIZET
Vieille chanson (words by Charles Millevoye)
Pastorale (words by Jean-François Regnard)
CÉCILE CHAMINADE
Si j'étais jardinier (words by Roger Miles)
Tu me dirais (words by Rosemond Gérard)
ERNEST CHAUSSON
"Les morts (No. 1 of Chansons de Miarka, Op. 17, words by Jean Richepin)"
CLAUDE DEBUSSY
"Les cloches (No. 2 of Deux romances, words by Paul Bourget)"
"Il pleure dans mon coeur (No. 2 of Ariettes oubliées, words by Paul Verlaine)"
"Haromonie du soir (No. 2 of Cinq poèmes de Baudelaire, words by Charles Baudelaire)"
La mort des amants (No. 5 of Cinq poèmes de Baudelaire)
Romance (No. 1 of Deux romances to words by Bourget)
L'ombre des arbres (No. 3 of Ariettes oubliées to words by Verlaine)
LÉO DELIBES
Les filles de Cadix (words by Alfred de Musset)
Jours passés (words by Armand Silvestre)
HENRI DUPARC
Extase (words by Jean Lahor)
Soupir (words by Armand Sully-Prudhomme)
CÉSAR FRANCK
Le mariage des roses (words by Eugène David)
Lied (words by Lucien Paté)
BENJAMIN GODARD
Te souviens-tu? (words by composer)
Embarquez-vous! (words by Ulrich Guttinguer)
L'amour (words by Rose Harel)
CHARLES GOUNOD
Au printemps (words by Jules Barbier)
Medjé: chanson arabe (words by Jules Barbier)
Le vallon (words by Alphonse de Lamartine)
REYNALDO HAHN
"L'heure exquise (No. 5 of Chansons grises, words by Paul Verlaine)"
Si mes vers avaient des ailes! (words by Victor Hugo)
VINCENT D'INDY
"Madrigal dans le style ancien (Op. 4, words by Robert de Bonnières)"
"Lied maritime (Op. 43, words by composer)"
JULES MASSENET
Chant provençal (words by Michel Carré)
Ouvre tes yeux bleux (words by Paul Robiquet)
Que l'heure est donc brève (words by Armand Silvestre)
GABRIEL PIERNÉ
Sérénade (Op. 7; words by Eugène Adenis)
CAMILLE SAINT-SAËNS
La cloche (words by Victor Hugo)
Clair de lune (words by Catulle Mendès)
AMBROISE THOMAS
Le soir (words by Michel Carré)
CHARLES-MARIE WIDOR
Soupir (words by Théophile Gautier)

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Robot as a Kid

Robot as a Kid is a music group from Quebec. One of the most silencing reconciliations of contemporary music scene embodied within the assamblage-like antifriction tonality. a master celebration of baudelarian-plathesque nuance of uncanny other.

to listen: robotasakid