Archive for October, 2008

It’s so rare to find a good new French singer that it deserved a post!

About six months ago, as I was getting ready for work, a then-unknown singer’s latest song was playing on TV5. The tune was catchy, fairly different from the usual crap, and the rhetoric caught my attention too. The song was “J’écris faux, je chante de la main gauche“.

I went about my day and forgot about it. Yet, a couple of weeks ago I googled it to find out who the singer was. His name turned out to be Benoît Dorémus, someone I had never heard of–which is not surprising in itself by the way as I usually don’t listen to any French music that was created after 1993, except for a couple of exceptions.

I ended up on Benoît’s website where you can actually listen to his entire album. The comparison with Renaud is obvious and makes sense since Benoît was produced by “l’homme au foulard“. Ten minutes into the album, I had to buy it (the iTunes store is quite handy for such compulsive buying cases). It was everything I was hoping for and more. His lyrics are witty, his music simple and popular. Whoever loved Renaud in the 80s will undoubtedly enjoy Benoît’s album. I particularly recommend “Un arracheur de sacs”!

This was rare enough to be blogged about. It gives me hope for France’s art scene renewal.

On that topic, a friend of mine, Cyrielle, was visiting last week and she’s toying with the idea of acting in the US so as promised, here’s her short bio in case anyone is interested.