This is a guest post by Jonathan Hall, senior French and linguistics major.
It seems that the average Anglophone suffers from a case of musical myopia—a severe inability to see beyond her or his native language in musical tastes. While passionate language learners or those whose tastes lie with less contemporary musical genres (opera, traditional folk songs, liturgical chants) may more regularly engage with music in a foreign language, I’d venture to argue much of this article’s readership does not belong to this aforementioned group, but rather rarely listens to lyrics in a foreign tongue. “Not without good reason!” you might exclaim (though perhaps in a slightly lower dialectical register, no need to be so pretentious), for the nadir of modern musical expression does seem to exist within Anglophone circles.
In fact, many prominent artists who natively speak other languages choose English for their lyrics to attract a larger audience. The French group Phoenix (based out of Versailles) maintain a discography entirely in English. Or consider The Tallest Man on Earth, whose folky tunes come from Leksand, Sweden. Further, much of the world listens to music in English. When I lived in France, I was likely to hear the same songs in the club there as I might in Jackson (though, word of advice, avoid Jackson clubs as much as possible).
Nevertheless, quality music exists in other languages, and this article strives to unveil a world of melodic beauty in words you might not yet understand. Unfortunately, the bulk of my foreign-language music knowledge is confined to the French language (the only foreign tongue I speak with any semblance of expertise). So, while my suggestions will remain restricted to the Francophone, this in no way indicates a lack of quality tunes in other languages. That the English language dominates the music scene is an accident of modern history. Historically, the vernacular hasn’t exactly been king (Latin had its stranglehold for a while there), and even music in the vernacular was written, English has lagged. You’ll have to pardon my brevity here. Music history isn’t my expertise, but suffice it say, Gilbert and Sullivan play second fiddle to the opera of Wagner, Mozart or Puccini.
But now, to business. There are several modern French language artists whose music reveals a beauty and depth worth our attention. In the United States, hip-hop music is witnessing an unprecedented rise in popularity. Many attentive listeners value its ability to channel the voices of the marginalized—music that attests sociopolitical realities, a musical littérature engagée. However, while the United States contains the most prominent hip-hop artists of the last 30 years, France comes in a close second. France’s Compton is the Parisian banlieu, lower-class suburbs often associated with immigrants, drug-trafficking and gangs. Perhaps the best known of these rappers is MC Solaar. With parents from Chad and Senegal (francophone countries in West Africa), his family settled in Saint-Denis (part of the banlieu). His work is energetic and cosmopolitan, rapping in multiple languages with an adept mix of commentary and jovial word-play. Some of his songs, such as 2001’s La belle et le bad boy achieved international acclaim, even being featured on Sex and the City.
In contrast to rap proceeding from the banlieu are the groups hailing from Marseille, France’s southern Mediterranean seaport. Similarly cosmopolitan to the banlieux, marseillais hip-hop often reflects on issues of race and religion among the marginalized cultural groups. No single group has achieved the fame or success of IAM, whose 1997 album, l’Ecole du micro d’argent represents the apex of French hip-hop. Many critics have compared IAM’s work to the American group Wu-Tang Clan, and with good reason—the two often collaborated.
For those readers less interested in hip-hop, I’m sorry. However, there remain some top-notch artists for you to appreciate. One of the first singers to which I first gave serious attention was Québécois musician, Coeur de pirate. She was first described to me as, “a sort of French Taylor Swift.” While this comparison is certainly reductive, it does offer a semi-accurate depiction of the soundscape of her songs. Her melodies accord to more traditional iterations of pop-songs, with a heavy emphasis on piano melody and vocal acrobatics. Coeur de Pirate sings both in English and French, though her most recent album, en cas de tempête, ce jardin sera fermé, is sung solely in French. Don’t mistake her euphonious tunes for vapidity as her lyrics tend toward the existential. In the opening song on her latest album, somnabule, her chorus reverberates with introspection:
Et je suis somnambule, mon rêve devient silence, et j’erre sans lui,
Les doutes d’une incrédule, se perdent dans la nuit
Et tout s’est décidé, je n’vis que d’idéaux, de mots cassés
Je tente d’être complétée, d’amour et d’inconnu.[1]
While on this melancholic tone, let’s shift our focus to another female singer, Camille. Camille is Parisian, with an educated timbre to her lyricism. My favorite album of hers, 2005’s le fil, possesses a broad array of lyric and melodic experimentation. Throughout the record, Camille demonstrates her broad vocal abilities while simultaneously exploring the voice as an acapella instrument. However, the album achieves its emotional zenith with its seventh song, Pour que l’amour me quitte—best translated as “so that love leaves me.”
For those intrigued by French grammar, the phrase presents a fascinating complexity. The words pour que serve an operative function, often expressed in English with “for that” or “so that.” However, the verbe quitte is in the subjunctive because pour que is always followed by the subjunctive. The subjunctive expresses wish or desire, so we might read the title as the artist, presumably Camille, desiring that love leave her or, instead, as simply an operative, descriptive phrase. This aside, the track presents a stripped-down sound in which the artist seems to simply present her feelings—an emotional experience.
Finally, there’s Cléa Vincent. Her music, in comparison with the previous artists, is light and optimistic. She embodies a tone reminiscent of French synth pop of the ’70s and ’80s. No one song exemplifies this tendency as Jmy attendais pas[2] from the album Retiens mon désir. Cléa accompanies the electronic tones with such ease that graver matters of her lyrics seem estranged from the melody. In short, it makes you want to dance about complicated love.
This presents a far too abbreviated summation of modern French music. Myriad other artists deserve attention and appreciation, but space is limited. I hope this overview offers motivation and opportunity to explore worlds of sound foreign to our own and, in so doing, you might discover something beautiful and worth your attention.
[1] Translation: And I am somnambulant, my dream becomes silent, and I wander without him. The doubts of an incredulous person, lose themselves in the night. And all is decided, I live but for ideas, for broken words. I try to be completed, by love and by the unknown.
[2] Probably translated as “I was not expecting this” if Jmy is, indeed, Je m’y attendais pas, but only if it’s a colloquial rendering of what would be Je ne m’y attendais pas. So, it’s hard to be certain.
