Conference marvin::uk_music

Now steady on there.  I mean, poor Marc may not be able to sing too well, and
he does have a face like a bucket with a dent in it, but `Jacky' the song is...,
well it's..., oh all right, it is pretty bad.

I thought that `Jacky' was a Jaques Brel song, yet the oaf who introduced `Top
of the Pops' last week said it was penned by Scott Walker.  Perhaps they both
did it.

Lee (in a stupid assed way)

    Hang on a sec there chaps. I admit, the record probably has seen better
    days back in the Scott Walker era, and he is pretty ugly, but I must 
    admit, he has a damn good voice.
    
    Get someone like Jason-babes to sing the same song who can't sing (in 
    my opinion - lets not go not a rat-hole) and he just wouldn't be able
    to get the same depth and range that the song needs.
    
    Its the same with Tony Hadley of Spandau. He had an excellent voice,
    but what happened to him?   Both Marc and Tony should be remanaged and 
    I'm sure would go far.
    
    julia

    
    Jacky is indeed a Jacques Brel song. I think Scott "Someone blowdried
    my face" Walker did a cover version. In fact, he hashed up quite a few
    of the Belgian bard's ballads.

    He did indeed - in fact, I have an lp called something like 'Scott
    Walker Sings Jacques Brel' (pretty self-explanatory, really) which I
    like a lot.
    
    Bob

   Can anyone tell me anything about Jacques Brel then.  My dad believes him
   to be a French poet/playwright but wants to know more.

   And yes, Scott Walker sung the original "Jacky", a song based on the life
   of Jacques Brel.  The Scott Walker version sounds like Marc Almond's
   (or is it the other way round) but Scott Walker's singing is more than
   slightly off key.

   Goldy.

    Jacques Brel was actually a French speaking Belgian and spent most of
    his life in Brussels. He wrote most of his own songs. His best known is 
    "Je ne me quitte pas" - sort of the froggy "My Way". I don't think he
    wrote plays and I've never seen any poetry of his. There are lots of
    compilation albums around if you're interested.
    
    
    Phil - who lives in Belgium (unfortunately).

    What's wrong with Belgium?
    
            Niall

    
    Didn't he also write 'If you go away' sung (and translated) by Rod
    McKuen (also dead?). I believe Rod McKuen was a sort of US equivilant
    to Brel.
    
    Richard

    >> McKuen (also dead?). I believe Rod McKuen was a sort of US equivilant
    >> to Brel.
    
    No, I don't think so, Brel was a real writer/singer, Rod McKuen was a
    purveyer of puerile sentimentality. Although Brel's lyrics can be a bit
    sweet and sickly, his songs do have a sense of irony. Rod McKuen
    wouldn't know irony if it bit him.
    
    Here I am defending French music when I often wonder to myself why so
    much of French music is crap. 
    
    
    Phil.

    Like the man said, not French, Belgian. Nonetheless taken to heart by
    gazillions of French people.
    
    "If you go away" (as also performed by Marc & the Mambas) is the
    English version of "Ne me quitte pas". The lyrics are surprisingly
    similar. It's not "Je ne me quitte pas" either (that would mean "I
    don't leave myself")
    
    Piers

My Way is a french song (originally titled Comme d'habitude) as well as many
others : Autumn leaves (les feuilles mortes), The sea (la mer), ...

About Jacques Brel. Many of his songs were translated into english by Mort 
Shuman (of Shuman-Doc Pomus fame). And one of them (Amsterdam) was covered by 
David Bowie.

Didier_not_chauvinistic

>> My Way is a french song (originally titled Comme d'habitude) as well as many
>> others : Autumn leaves (les feuilles mortes), The sea (la mer), ...
    
    I didn't know this, I've heard Comme d'habitude (Brel does a version
    doesn't he?) and naturally (being anglo-centric) assumed it was the
    other way around ie the english version preceeded the french version.
    
    But here is an interesting topic, why is French music, specifically
    rock music so bad? There are a few notable exceptions - Mano Negra and
    Les Negresses Vertes come to mind and there is lotsa good music sung in
    french eg zydeco, zouk, a lot of African music (but it doesn't come
    from France).
    just doesn't seem to make it. 

   I remember Plastique Bertrand.  He was French, wasn't he?

   Goldy.

    Elmer Foodbeat aren't bad.
    
    
             Niall

    Plastic (to his friends) came from Belgium, I believe.
    
    Mark

    I thought My Way was written by Paul Anka?
    
    Piers

My way was not written by Paul Anka, it was written in the 60's by Claude
Francois.

About french music being bad, most of the names you quote really makes me laugh.
It is as if I was qualifying US and UK music by quoting Ingelbert Humperdink,
Stock/Aitken/Waterman puppets or the like... I didn't say that for the Negresses
Vertes or La Mano Negra but for Plastic Bertrand and so on.

I don't want to debate once again about french music, I've already done it quite
often in RECORDS, MUSIC, RADIO_RADIO or even UK_MUSIC if I remember well.

Cheers,

Didier

>> About french music being bad, most of the names you quote really makes me laugh.
    
    Are you talking to me?  What other names did I quote? I haven't been
    around for previous discussions on french music. My own little theory
    is that in french music too much emphasis is put on the lyrics and not
    enough on the music. Whereas in anglo-rock the lyrics are secondary and
    often unintelligible or meaningless.
    
    A secondary theory is that there is an inverse relationship between the
    quality of the food and the quality of the music ie the English produce
    great music because their stomachs are full of greasy fish and chips.
    (It's only a hypothesis).
    
    Phil.
         

... but I'm sad for the ones that only know Plastic Bertrand or Patric Bruel 
and not french bands like The Dogs, Bijou, Starshooter, The Playboys, Asphalt 
Jungle, Metal Urbain, Gamine, Les Civils, Etienne Daho, Les Calamites, Niagara,
Stinky Toys, Au Bonheur Des Dames, Magma...

It's true that if you listen to Plastic Bertrand or Patrick Bruel, you might
be quite frightened about what french music must be (I'm also wondering what
'emphasis on lyrics' can mean for them !).

But the point is that there is no rules in music, french or other. If you know
some french artists that put emphasis on lyrics, it's OK but I can quote you
hundreds of english speaking artists that do the same (Bob Dylan or Leonard
Cohen are the first that come to mind).

And for the other part of the debate, I was just amused to see how many people
think that 'My way' has been created by Frank Sinatra. Imagine the kid that 
start to listen to music in 1977-1978. He discovers Sid Vicious' My way and then
years later he hears Frank Sinatra singing it ! Is he going to think that
Frank Sinatra has covered Sid Vicious ???!!!
It reminds of the song 'La mer' covered in english by George Benson, among 
others, as 'The Sea' or 'Somewhere beyond the sea'. Charles Trenet, composer of
this song, once was in a bar in the US and this song was played on the radio.
Then a guy in the bar told him : "This is a great american song !'. So Charles
Trenet amused said 'OK it is an american song, who wrote it ?". 
"Irving Berlin !" answered  this guy who never knew he had the composer next to 
him. :-)

Cheers_to_all_of_you_who_don't_know_what_they_miss

Didier

> and not french bands like The Dogs, Bijou, Starshooter, The Playboys, Asphalt 
> Jungle, Metal Urbain, Gamine, Les Civils, Etienne Daho, Les Calamites, Niagara,
> Stinky Toys, Au Bonheur Des Dames, Magma...

Tell us more about Stinky Toys!

Lee

The Stinky Toys were one of the first french punk bands. Don't believe that
they were imitators of the Clash or the Pistols if I call them 'punk'.

The fact is that since 73-74, an energetic french music scene start to appear
due to the admiration of french people for bands like The Stooges, The MC5 and
mostly the Flamin'Groovies that are really mythical for us french rockers.
There was a nucleus in the Paris area of friends that were later to become
The Stinky Toys, Asphalt Jungle and Metal Urbain. When they released their 
first singles, they were labelled 'punks' because punk started to appear in the
UK but there was no imitation at all. BTW, theirs first singles were released
in 76-77 in the mean time the first UK punk items (i.e. Buzzcocks'Spiral Scratch,
Clash'1977, Sex Pistols'Anarchy in the UK or Lurkers'Love Story).

The Stinky Toys were characterized by Elli's vocals and Jacno's guitar style
abolutely incredible (not in the sense Ymgvie Malsteem rival but rather in the
just_like_nothing_on_earth vein :-)). They released 2 incredibly good LPs.
Then they split and the duet Elli and Jacno (husband and wife BTW) continued
in the pop-synth style (but quite fine however due to the intelligence of
Jacno).

Then the divorced and both made a solo career. Jacno is sometimes synth oriented
(you might have heard his instrumental 'Triangle' that is quite famous) and
sometimes his incredible guitar style oriented.
Elli is now named Elli Medeiros and has turned to brasilian style (?!).

I haven't heard anything new from them for 3 years !

Didier

    Hey, I love Les Negresses Vertes. 
    
    I think it's a running joke in here re: Plastic Bertrand. Well, at
    least I think it is: someone says, "blah, blah that French band Plastic
    Bertrand...,"  then Christophe or someone steps in and says, "Their from
    Belgium!!"  I wonder how many times this has happened?
                                                                  
    -Victoria

    French bands are mostly bad because French people refuse to dance.
    
    Ray

    Rubbish.
    
    I have seen at least two French people dancing. Neither of them
    Christophe.
    
    Piers

I've never heard that french people had the reputation of not liking to dance.

It would be funny if you could collect all the 'a priori' you have against 
french people (frog eaters, non dancers, ...). On the other hand, I could tell 
you what french people think british people are, but I would be banned out of 
this conference for that :-) !

Didier

>> you what french people think british people are, but I would be banned out of 
>> this conference for that :-) !
    
    Nah, go for it Didier, get stuck into 'em, pommy-bashing is music to an 
    aussie's ears.
    
    
>> It would be funny if you could collect all the 'a priori' you have against 
>> french people (frog eaters, non dancers, ...). On the other hand, I could tell 
    
    Don't forget nuclear-weapon detonators.
    
    
    Phil

    � Don't forget nuclear-weapon detonators.
    
    Isn't that a New Zealand bias?
    
    Mark

     <<< Note 905.22 by SWAM2::BERZER_VI "From the land of 5 area codes" >>>
                               -< C'est la vie >-

>    I think it's a running joke in here re: Plastic Bertrand. Well, at
>    least I think it is: someone says, "blah, blah that French band Plastic
>    Bertrand...,"  then Christophe or someone steps in and says, "Their from
>    Belgium!!"  I wonder how many times this has happened?
                                                                  
    Hello,

    I think UK/US people keep mentioning Plastic Bertrand because it might be 
    the last French-speaking guy/band who had something like a hit overseas 
    (I thought things like 'Joe Le Taxi' and the non-dance classic 'Lambada' had
    done quite well in Britain though). And that was back in the late-Seventies.
    And this is one good thing about us. Every country produces his fair share 
    of crap, but WE generally keep it for internal use. Whereas other countries
    don't feel ashamed to export, say, New Kids On The Block, Bryan Adams, Phil 
    Collins and the likes.

    Have a good day,

    Christophe

            <<< Note 905.23 by ESGWST::RDAVIS "William Dhalgren" >>>
                        -< Music to smoke Gauloises by >-

>    French bands are mostly bad because French people refuse to dance.
    
    True. Otherwise the beret would fall down.

    Christophe

    who was the French guy who had that big hit with a song called "Words"
    many years ago? David somebody......
    
    Wasn't that a No.1 hit here? I remember buying it for my Mum!
    
    Dale.

>    who was the French guy who had that big hit with a song called "Words"
>    many years ago? David somebody......
    
     He was called F.R. David. Music from the Sentier.

     Christophe

    
    Heh, Bertrand, we've got lots of crap for internal use only! :^)
    
    The trouble with music which isn't in English is that the AMERICAN
    market can't understand it (don't think that England influences the
    world's use of English anymore). English is a widely spoken language
    throughout the whole world (even Americans and Australians speak a 
    wierd version! :^)) and so any group with worldwide ambitions tend to
    sing in English. Because the 'big' performers sing in English, the
    main acceptance (lowest common denominator principle) is for English
    singing performers and there is a widespread resistance to anything in 
    a 'foreign' language.
    
    It IS difficult to really appreciate a song in a language you don't
    understand (witness Jean Michel Jarre's success - If he sang, he'd be
    very small beer internationally.), and most of the world understands
    English to one extent or another (except Australians who seem to think
    Transportation only applied to their ancestors! :^)).
    
    Mark

    No I didn't really want to know, but it has been bugging me for the
    past few days now.....
    
    Cheers anyway.
    
    Dale.

    
    Just to complete the discussion on My Way (way back), the English
    lyrics were written by Paul Anka and its generally accepted that the
    reason the song is so succesful is the subtle interplay between the
    chords/melody line (any maybe a few key changes?) and the lyrics which
    seem to rise and rise to the climactic ....My Way.
    
    So, Paul Anka could REALLY have a fair amount to do with the success of
    that song.
    
    Anyway, getting back to French music, what about Francois Hardy (well
    as I remember here in the 60s!). But then may I wasn't listening to the
    music!
    
    
    Richard

    That'll be Fran�oise, presumably?
    
    Piers

    
    Ah yes, I guess I was referring to a male with Fran�ois (where is that
    damn symbol!!). The one I'm think of was MOST definitely female!
    
    Richard

    As it happens, the opening chord progression on Bowie's 'Life on Mars'
    is a direct lift from 'My Way'; apparently, this was intentional, as
    Bowie hated 'My Way' so much he felt he could do a lot better.
    
    I wonder if the panel agree that he did.
    
    Bob

    Re. last - correct, Bob, but I don't think he could have hated "My Way"
    *that* much, as it's been strongly rumoured for ages that he was
    actually one of the first Brits to tackle the song (prior to Paul
    Anka's 'translation').  Indeed, I have a short black and white video 
    clip from c.1968 of him performing his version over the original
    French/Belgian backing track ... hardly essential viewing, but an
    interesting curio nonetheless!!  ;^)
    
    - Dougie