André Boßes ebook “Travel, Travel” | EUROtoday

Die Sinnlichkeit, mit der Serge Gainsbourg im Song „Machins Choses“ einst vom „Dingsda“ sang, das sich Liebespaare ganz leise sagen, das unerklärlich ist und deswegen alles verheißt, illustriert, was André Boße als dramaturgisches Grundmuster des französischen Pop ausmacht: All die Lieder, so harmlos sie auch beginnen mögen, kippen spätestens in der letzten Strophe ins Melodramatische. Serge Gainsbourg vereinte wie kein Zweiter die Charakteristika der französischen Szene, stilistische Wendigkeit zwischen Jazz, Yéyé und Chanson, den Hang zu erotischen Anspielungen und zuweilen derber Sexualisierung, eine melancholische Grundstimmung und eine narzisstisch angehauchte „männliche Jammerper­spektive.“

Zwei ausdrücklich persönliche Gründe hatte Boße, sich erstmals intensiv mit dem „pop français“ zu beschäftigen: einerseits seine späte Entdeckung von „Frankreichs großem Rockstar“ Alain Bashung und dessen Song „La nuit je mens“. In ihm sind Boße zufolge „alle Fragen und Antworten des Lebens angelegt, allerdings furchtbar unkonkret“, womit er für etwas stehe, was so nur der französische Pop leiste. Außerdem traf Boße eines Tages die Erkenntnis, dass der Kultsong über die Pariserin „Léa“, 1997 von der französischen Folkpunk-Band Louise Attaque veröffentlicht, so wie viele andere musikalische Perlen in Deutschland nur den wenigsten bekannt sind.

Natürlich gibt es etliche weitere Gründe für Musikliebhaber und für Frankophile, in die Geschichte der französischen Popmusik einzutauchen. Denn wie Provokation und Emotion inszeniert und dabei zugleich die nationalen Mythen, Kämpfe und Obsessionen musikalisch katalysiert werden, sagt mehr über das Land und seine Bewohner als so manche akademische Mentalitätsgeschichte.

“He was life, life in all its sovereign, dazzling and generous facets, and he was part of ourselves, he was part of France,” Emmanuel Macron introduced in 2017 to hundreds of listeners in entrance of the well-known Madeleine church in Paris at a so-called “hommage populaire”, a sort of fashionable farewell, on the event of the demise of Johnny Hallyday. In the early Sixties, Hallyday grew to become the “Elvis of France” and the star of the Yéyé motion, the French model of British rock 'n' roll, which, writes Boße, was hardly seen exterior France due to its “dramas, drum machines and stupidity”.

Another gigantism factors to the nationwide significance of French pop music: On July 14, 1990, the digital pioneer Jean-Michel Jarre organized the best spectacle in music historical past on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris on the bicentenary of the nationwide vacation in entrance of two.5 million spectators on a now legendary pyramid stage.

For his monograph “Voyage, Voyage”, Boße listened to numerous data from chanson to the funky digital French contact of the current, visited fan websites, performed interviews and consulted treatises on the nationwide songs. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a index of names, so the ebook is much less appropriate as a reference work and reads extra like a relaxed narrative report that largely avoids prolonged skilled explanations.

Boße is kind of frank and presents the “Germans' favourites” in sixteen chapters, some detailed and a few cursory. These embody Desireless, France Gall, Jane Birkin, Françoise Hardy, Vanessa Paradis and ZAZ. Elsewhere he teams such numerous artists as Jacques Dutronc, Brigitte Fontaine and Bernard Lavilliers underneath “Les individualistes”. He pays specific consideration to the one internationally vital French indie rock group, Noir Désir, whose 1992 album “Tostaky” he places on a par with the grunge works of Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains and Soundgarden. The proven fact that Noir Désir singer Bertrand Cantat killed his girlfriend out of jealousy in 2003 nonetheless divides followers and critics to this present day.

It is astonishing that French fashionable music has hardly developed its personal types and genres aside from the traditional “Chanson à texte” and its trendy counterpart, the Nouvelle Scène – consider Dominique A or Benjamin Biolay – however has produced numerous solo artists with their very own signature by way of the typically exalted and exaggerated processing of influences from the USA, Great Britain, the Arab and Mediterranean areas. In the chapter “L'éléctronique et le French Touch”, Boße reveals that France is indisputably the pioneer nation of pulsating, melodically floating synthesizer pop and the popularization of techno with elegant, funky guitar rhythms.

In addition to nice reward for the visionaries of Daft Punk, whose album “Discovery” grew to become the soundtrack of an period “when the future was still a promise,” in accordance with Boße, the sarcastically damaged ballads of the erotomaniac Sébastien Tellier are dismissed as “sleazy synth pop with all kinds of lyrical filth.” The proven fact that the Rwandan-Belgian musician Stromae (“Alors on danse”) instantly introduced his return in 2022 after a burnout throughout a TV interview on the primary French information with the emotional track “L'enfer” signifies as soon as once more that totally different guidelines apply in France's music scene than on this nation. André Boße makes you curious to find this musical universe in accordance with your personal guidelines.

André Boße: “Voyage, Voyage”. A journey by way of French pop music. Reclam Verlag, Ditzingen 2024. 352 pp., unwell., paperback, 20,– €.