St Patrick's Day - Renaud: La ballade Nord-Irlandaise

In previous years I've marked St Patrick's Day in the blog, in a way celebrating he celtic links between France and Ireland.

Apart from the obvious celtic link with Brittany, France has always been sympathetic to Ireland and its music has played a large part in bringing the countries together.

One singer who was captivated by Ireland and shared his love with his audience was Renaud.

Renaud Séchan is a hugely popular singer in France and very much a "chanteur engagé". He has always been politically engaged and his songs have regularly articulated social criticism in a voice that's attracted criticism for its lack of sophistication, in a way similar to Bob Dylan, criticism that's usually rejected on account of his songwriting skills.

One song by Renaud remains well-know in the UK, with his song Miss Maggie attracting a huge amount of attention in 1985, during mMrgaret Thatcher's term as Prime Minister.

Renaud would be influenced by Ireland and recorded La ballade Nord-Irlandaise originally for his 1991 album Marchand de cailloux, which he recorded in London.

He would continue his exploration of folk music with his following album that came out in 1992, a collection of folk songs from the north of France entitled Renaud cante el'Nord.

Renaud toured pubs in Ireland in '97, his only publicity being a sign in the pub window saying he was playing that night.

His interest in Ireland would reach fruition with the 2009 album Molly Malone – Balade irlandaise, a collection of irish songs that were translated into French.

Recorded in Dublin with Pete Briquette, formerly of the Boomtown Rats, producing and Terry Woods from The Pogues among the musicians, the album would go straight in at number one in the French album charts.



(Clip) Renaud - La Ballade Nord Irlandaise by Cannibal-rouge

Third birthday: Bon Anniversaire!

Today marks the third birthday of the Vive Le Roq music blog, so Bon Anniversaire to us !

The number of posts we're featured has increased over the years we've been around  from 24 in total on our first year to over 200 last year. To give an idea on what that kind difference means, I'm on schedule to have as many posts this month as I managed the whole of 2012.

The last couple of years have seen the music industry undergo massive changes. In the retail sector, it's not been so much The Times They Are A Changin' as It's the End of The World As We Know It. One thing that has remained constant though is that there's been a huge amount of great music being released.

There are arguments that the record companies are becoming more selective in what they release, less willing to allow artists to take chances and less willing to sign artists that are not immediate commercial propositions.

But that's always been the case. The music business has always been a volatile mix of art and business, an arena where quality is too often measured in commercial success rather than artistic merit. But regardless of this, quality acts have existed and great music has always come out and it still will.

One positive change that has certainly come around because of the internet is that music is more available than ever. Acts may find it harder to compete and to make a living, but by the same measure the costs of getting your music heard are lower than ever. Acts no longer have to wait for the record company to knock at their (virtual) rehearsal studio door before getting their music released and heard.

Similarly the geographical restrictions that once meant you had to actually be outside the UK before you heard much from beyond our linguistically and culturally limited  soundscape have been swept away by the internet. Our horizons are as open as we want them to be.

I'm optimistic about the future and I'm sure French music will be a significant part of the world's musical landscape in the decades to come.

Anyway, thanks for coming around, hope you enjoy the music as much as I have done, and onwards into the next year.


Merci et à bientôt

jk

Eurovision: Amandine Bourgeois - L'enfer et moi

The video's been unveiled for France's entry for the 2013 Eurovision Song Contest, with the song L'enfer et moi by  Amandine Bourgeois.

She was the winner of the sixth season of Nouvelle Star in 2008, and has released two albums since then, 2009's 20 m²,a top five album, and 2012's Sans amour mon amour.

In January she was named as the proformed of France's Eurovision entry for the competitionin Malmö in Sweden. Eighteen songs were shortlisted for France's entry this year, and a panel chose five finalists going into a second round which resulted in her performance of L'Enfer Et Moi being chosen by a majority decision. The song was written by Boris Bergman and David Salkin.

Bergman's a writer and lyricist who has been a song writer since the last 60s, working with artists including France Gall, Juliette Gréco and others, including noteably Alain Bashung in the 80s.

He was also behing the English language adaptations of the songs of Serge Gaisbourg that appeared on the 2006 album Monsieur Gainsbourg Revisited. he recently collaborated with ex-Téléphone guitarist Louis Bertignac on his Grizzly album from 2011.

Last year France was represented at the Final in Baku in Azerbaijan by Anggun with the song Echo (You And I).

This year's Eurovision final is being held on May 18.

Mama Rosin: The Boat Sessions #1

A great piece of video of our favourite Swiss Cajun act Mama Rosin.

They were playing as a session for World Music magazine Songlines.

I featured them a while back when they played in Glasgow as part of the Celtic Connections festival, it's great to hear them doing so well.

They've just toured the UK and Ireland, and are currently playing in Poland and Germany.

their most recent album Bye Bye Bayou was released in October last year, bringing another chapter in their punk-informed take on French Southern American music via the shores of Lake Geneva.

the album was produced by John Spencer, from the band Blues Explosion, who first came across Mama Rosin when they supported him during some of his gigs in Europe.

Nice to see them getting some of the attention they deserve.

There are some more dates in the Netherlands and Paris next month, and shows in Texas and Louisiana following that.

M Pokora: Live à Bercy

Been a while since i've looked at the French charts, so perhaps worth a mention of former boy band star M Pokora knocking Indochine off the number one position with his Live à Bercy album

The singer, known to his family as Matthieu Tota, was last at number one in the album charts in 2006,with his second album Player,  his last album A la Poursuite du Bonheur missing the top spot when it was released this time last year.

The live collection is a memento of the tour Pokora undertook following the release of the album. A la Poursuite du Bonheur has sold over 300,000 copies in France, his most successful album of his career, on the back of three successful singles Juste un Instant, On est là and Merci d'etre.

Since then, he's been even more high profile with his involvement in the Generation Goldman various artists collection which featured his duet with Tal Envole-moi. This recording went on to become a top five hit.

The Generation Goldman album, which was the number one seller before Indochine, is France's number two album this week.

Pokora first came to public attention as part of the Popstars reality show boyband band Linkup, whose 2003 Notre étoile album and single Mon étoile both reached number one in their respective charts France.

His solo career began the following year when the band split, his self-titled debut released in 2004 going platinum, the follow up in 2006, Player, hitting number one.

Pokora's shortly taking the part of Robin Hood in the musical Robin des Bois, Ne Renoncez Jamais from September, and a soundtrack CD due for release beforehand

-M- : Océan

A new video for the track Océan from the -M- album Mojo.

It's the second track to be taken from the album as a single, the album originally coming out in November last year.

It's a very different video to the street style of the previous track Mojo. This is by far a more artistic proposition with nods to 1970s style and art house cinema.

Last month saw the release of a new edition of the album Mojo, with extra remixes of the title track by C2C and Willy Moon, and -M- has been playing live extensively, even playing some dates in the UK earlier this month.

There are two dates at the Zénith in Paris in June, as well as gigs at some of France's biggest festivals over the summer.

We Are Indie XIV

There's been some great work at the indiemusic.fr website with their compilations of some very fine cutting edge French (and elsewhere) music.

I'm very pleased to see their latest collection We Are Indie XIV is now available on the indiemusic.fr website.

There are a couple of international artists, Jacko Hooper from the UK, Italy's Platonick Dive, Wimps and The Bengsons from the US among them, but on the whole its acts from France that dominate the collection.

There are also some bands we've previously featured here on viveleroq.com, such as Wall of Death and Hello Bye Bye.

There's a huge range of styles, from pop orientated to more experimental, electronic and rock.

I can't recommend it enough, and its available as either a free download or you can listen online.

It's available here: http://www.indiemusic.fr/we-are-indie/we-are-indie-14/