Entertainment For Lively Minds
Johnny Halliday
Posted by Carl Parker on 19 June 2009 - 5:53pm.
I've just heard on PM on Radio 4 that Johnny is retiring. A man who apparently appeals to 3 generations of French music lovers is doing his farewell tour (probably his 1st farewell tour, but I'm not getting into that).
He's someone I think many, many people in ths country have heard, but we remain unmoved. What spell does he cast over our French cousins? Other French singers have a modicum of popularity, but M. Halliday fails to touch our hearts.
Or am I mistaken? Is the Word readership a haven for Halliday fans?
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It's all relative
and there's probably a post on the French equivalent website ("Le Mot" magazine?) wondering what on earth Brits (or "les rosbifs") see in Cliff Richard ("Cleef Reecherd').
I was just composing a witty post about
him being the French Cliff Richard but you beat me to it.
I think the attraction is that he was the first French rock and roller to break through into the mainstream so, to the French, he's the original, the real thing - but a character of less relevance as the years pass.
Errr
Isn't he Belgian? Can't be arsed to check but I think so. Incidentally a mate of mine played piano with him for a few gigs and said he's a decent geezer.
Not according to the bastion of reliable veracity that is
Wikipedia. Born 15th June 1943 in Paris
Perhaps
you were thinking of Jaques Brel or - shurely not - Plastic Bertrand?
Cliff and The Shadows
are playing a European Anniversary tour this year including on November 7th - Palais des Congres, Paris, France.
I didn't hear anything about Johnny playing UK dates. But I could be wrong.
Are you sitting comfatably on your square botty...
http://www.amazon.com/Johnny-Hallyday/dp/B00004T428
the french have many accomplishments and charms
but maybe they should just admit that pop and rock music isn't one of them.
don't agree
Air, MC Solaar,IAM, Alliance Ethnik, Sebastian Tellier, etc...
With you on that
I love Serge Gainsbourg, and his later albums are great pop. Also Magama? Daft Punk?
Can I also mention ( and there's no way that this is defensible in an approaching middle-age man) the pop glory of the not unattractive Alizee?
French music is brilliant
Saying they're no good at music is a bit like saying the English are no good at football just because they haven't won anything in 43 years.
There's loads of brilliant French music out there, you just have to look a bit harder. I would go as far as saying the standard of French pop music has been higher than that of the British equivalent over the last five years. For example, I think the new Phoenix album is better than any pop album to come out of the UK this year.
I think the list so far would be like
putting forward Britain's bragging rights on the basis of a few electronics acts like afex twin, orbital etc and dizzie rascal (all of them good bands) but come one the french just don't hack it .You can't be good at everything and they can't do pop and rock. They've had their moments with the likes of serge gainsbourg but he's the exception that tests the rule.
And as for having to track it down it's pop music it shouldn't be hidden under a stone if it was any good we'd have heard it already.
I'll check out the phoenix record.
But forget the French Beatles where's the French Gerry and the pace makers?
Just had a listen to phoenix
hurrah the French have got their own Keane ! they could have got the real one, Kent is not that far from france after all!
I see they are on at lattitude so I'll try to give them a longer and fairer hearing there. Having said that denmark must have at least 10 bands as good as this in copehagen alone.
I did like the barrage balloon in the video oh and did you notice they were singing in english......
Keene?
Surely the Flight of the Concords? If you have spotify check this out:
http://open.spotify.com/track/47DUqw6NUAoa65rLJcb18G
.......and on vocals it's Brett (or Brit if you are a Kiwi).
You have to admit, it *is* brilliant, though.
"if it was any good we'd have heard it already"
But where would you hear it?
We live in a country that is more resistant to music not sung in its native tongue than just about anywhere else on the planet. If the French, or German or Japanese charts contain a good amount of Anglo/American music, it's because their broadcast media is more open to it, not because their own music is inferior. The French have always made brilliant pop music: Gainsbourg has been mentioned, but what about Francois Hardy? Or Jacques Dutronc? Or Barbara? Or, to bring the tradition up to date, Pascal Parisot? French electronic music at its best (just like UK electronic music at its best) is fantastic: Air, Daft Punk (within their genre, perhaps the most influential act of the last decade) and Sebastian Tellier have been mentioned, but there's also Etienne De Crecy, Alex Gopher, St Germain, and dozens of others. The French hip-hop scene matured and found its own voice years before the UK scene did. I could go on. And on. And on.
Give Radio Nova or Oui FM a listen. These are radio stations with music policies that shame anything in this country when it comes to the shear breadth of output: origin is unimportant, quality is. Nova's annual 25-CD box sets are the best instant record collections money can buy: they contain French music, British music, African music, American music, reggae, hip-hop, dance, jazz... where's the UK equivalent?
btw: the French are wrong about one thing, though: Johnny Halliday is crap.
I'm with you
on the brilliance of Nova. It can be the only commercial station in Europe that will play a 20 minute Fela Kuti track at lunchtime.
Britain and america's
aversion to foreign language product is fair point but Johnny foreigner doesn't make it hard for us by singing in english from everywhere from rio to stockholm. I still stand by the point that the French can't do pop and rock the meagre showing above below makes this point . Whenever I've raised this point before air and serge gainsbourg always get brought up they really are the exception isn't MC solarr the french Derrick B?
I think the totality of BBC radio has pretty good music coverage it's not all mixed up in many places (of which there could be more of) but good none the less .
Like I say it's nothing to be massively ashamed off i just don't see the point of trying to claim a canon that's not there.
Derek B
A much-maligned artist. He was the first UK rap/hip-hop artist to write about life in the UK and 'sing' in a native accent.
He was, in fact, the ur-Streets, the proto-Mike Skinner.
"Changed my GTi for a Porsche
3.3 Turbo of course
Driving down the M4 from my country retreat
When I looked in the mirror
Guess what? Blue heat
Cops flashed their lights twice
I pulled over
Two Old Bill jumped quick out the Rover
etc etc"
Much of the Bullet From A Gun album still stands up today as up there with the best of 'old skool' rap/hip-hop.
he didn't go down too well
at our college ball all those years ago. he came on really late called the crowd a bunch of "Henrys" (sadly true) and then did about 20 minutes and then nicked off. Thankful Aswad then came on and stole the show!
Language-regulated radio
Without encouraging the outdated stereotype of the French as culturally zealous protectionists, don't French radio stations work within a broadcasting policy which requires a fixed percentage of all broadcast music to be French? The racks in Fnac may be full of Muse but French language music dominates the airwaves across the channel (although not *quite* to the extent that English-language music does here in Blighty).
They do
As far as I know, 40% of music played must be French language. In reality, it's up in the high 40s. I think that's a pretty healthy balance. Can you imagine a requirement here that 50% of music played be in languages other than English?
You're right, it's 40%
but "youth" stations can do 35%. I think it only applies to private stations, which is how the French John Peel, Bernard Lenoir gets away with playing very little French music on France Inter.
I think we'd struggle.
If nothing else, this year's Eurovision highlighted the dominance of English-language lyrics in pop music, with only about 4 or 5 nations competing in their native tongue. I think the regulations came in around the time that the French Hip Hop scene started to develop and was intended, in part, to conteract the number of French acts performing in English. That said, my gf's French is far superior to mine and she insists that the language, beautiful though it is, is not particularly suited to rhyme and meter.
Strange
Maybe it's because I don't speak any French that it sounds so well-suited to rap to me.
Interesting,
though I doubt that my pained attempts at conversation on the subject of contemporary theatre in the north of England 'en francais' makes me particularly well qualified.
Personally, I find that the occasionally stiff formalism of the language, along with clunky slang (owl = cool) lead to a disjointed flow, though I think that you might have home ground advantage on any discussion on "l'ip 'op". Care to suggest a 'French Hip Hop for beginners' for anyone wishing to open their ears a bit?
Dutch hip-hop
Been posted here before but this is a fine performance - and a cracking video to boot
"Excuse me, I was wondering if you stock a copy of
Frisbee F*ckers?".
doesn't french just have less words
than english!
I'm no expert
But here's a bit of old-skool - to me this sounds poetic
As for new stuff - you could try TTC, who are signed to Big Dada, the same label as Roots Manuva, although they're a bit weirdo-electronica for me. I like Sheyro, who has the kind of laid-back delivery I think suits the language, and you could try IAM, who are million sellers, to see what's popular. MC Solaar is the cliched French-rapper-that-everyone-knows, but he's actually pretty good. And I like Abd al Malik, who does the jazzy stuff you'll find in a lot of French rap really well. Give the Last FM French Hip Hop Channel a go.
I'll give it a go
you should never be closed minded and having tried morris dancing.....
Soon-e-mc
is great. That first album would sound good anywhere
One band to disprove your statement
Cortex. Well they are if you're into jazz-funk fusiony type stuff.
which bit of P.O.P
don't understand? :) "jazz-funk fusiony type stuff" is the musical equivalent of Ice hockey only popular in towns were there's not a decent football team!
Level 42 played
'jazz funk fusion-y stuff' but they were certainly pop music.
ahh level 42
the Sheffield Ice tigers of pop!!
But, until they decided to go for singles success...
a damn fine jazz-rock band.
Yes,
I like going to France on halliday
The French do girl singers much better than we do
What would I rather have heading my way? Loane on her bed or Duffy on her bicycle?
How about some french prog folk?
OK, it can be an aquired taste....
and
It gets a thumbs up from me...
good stuff.
That would explain why he's on the cover of French GQ magazine
this month. He's doing the same thing with his head's hair as Tom Jones does these days. The headline is '100% Chic'. The current issue of British GQ has Megan Fox on the cover and, in an article about Nicolas Sarkozy, describes Halliday as 'the moribund Belgian'. Le Monde had Halliday on the cover of its weekend magazine last weekend.
In France you can buy the latest PJ Harvey & John Parrish cd at your local supermarket ... for 19 Euros 90 cents. Thomas Dutronc, son of Jacques Dutronc and Francoise Hardy, is Number 1 in the singles charts. I'm up for a chat about the French music scene if anyone's willing.
Talking of things the French do differently. 'Charlie Hebdo', satirical magazine, covered the Air France tragedy thus: '228 missing persons ... 228 more abstentions from the European elections!'
Camille - French yes, and one of the most interesting...
...singers in the world by a country mile (or should that be 1.6 km de la campagne?). I am besotted and can't understand why she's not the global megastar she should be - check her out.
I like Camille
and think she is incredibly talented, but can understand why she isn't an international megastar. She wilfully treads her own path in much the same way as Bjork, and I don't think she would ever want to be a global megastar.
Global megastar
Surely everybody in the music biz would give a crack at being a global megastar? It's only when you are that the moaning begins, isn't it?