maandag 2 juli 2007

Sylvie Vartan


A few years back, older Hollywood actresses complained that there just were no good roles for them. As a woman, you'd either be cast as a granny, or a bimbo, and nothing inbetween. This complaint went away somehow, but I thought about it while listening to the brandspanking new cd (released end of June) by Sylvie Vartan. The icon of the sixties, as much a grand-mère of Les Filles Sourires as Jane Birkin, chose to cover songs from her heyday. Dylan (in French), Beatles, Stones, Leonard Cohen (also in French), and from France Gainsbourg, Hardy and Dutronc. When the arrangements stay in the bossa/flamenco area, it's all good. When she tries to rock out, like in Baby You Can Drive My Car, my toes curled. You'd wish a songwriter, young or old, had stood up and said: You know what, I write you a brand new song that's more in the vein of the rest of the album. Or more convenient to your age. Vartan is from 1944, you know.
But are there still good songwriters for, let's say, the older female singer? Françoise Hardy, who was capable of writing very good songs on her own, chose to do duets and covers on her last album. Birkin on the other hand had Neil Hannon, Rufus Wainwright and Jarvis Cocker on the author-chair. Jarvis and Sylvie: could work too. [Merci á Franss]

Sylvie Vartain - Nouvelle Vague
Sylvie Vartan - Attend ou va-t'en
Sylvie Vartan- Suzanne

6 opmerkingen:

  1. Ai, the album you've been waiting for couldn't fullfil your high expectations? Bad luck for you and Sylvie, though the tracks you've posted aren't indeed that bad at all. Thanks for that, but I think - after reading and listening this - that I better stick to her older work too ;-)

    (Pathetic album-cover by the way. Botox & Photoshop galore. Let pics like that be made by the Gwen Stefanies of this world please)

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  2. This (awful) "Suzanne" in french is a "cover" of the original Graeme Allwright translation

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  3. if jane b and francoise still can do it- surely there is hope for sylvie too...?

    she did release an pop album (which was half decent):
    http://www.amazon.fr/Sylvie-Vartan/dp/B0001W8DR4/ref=pd_bbs_12/403-5758248-8354863?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1183797184&sr=8-12

    and i liked La Neige En été but she does need someone cool to come and sort her out and make her join the 21st century

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  4. seba_malengreaux@hotmail.com8 juli 2007 om 01:27

    These covers are just aweful. Is she in need of money? It's the worst album she ever made. "Nouvelle vague" is almost the same album title as "Septième vague", the album of Laurent Voulzy with covers.

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  5. I don't agree with you. Vartan is a legend in France, Japan, Italy...
    She is the french female artist who has done more magazine covers than even Bardot, sold 40 millions records since the sixties and was even on the cover of Elle magazine at 60 years old with a parisian classy museum who was devoted to her for six months. In other words: she has nothing to proove.
    This album is well done. Her voice still have this rock n'roll sound that makes her so different from Hardy, Birkin...and the arrangments are totally beauiful.
    This is a must album and the lady is still gorgeous
    Carl

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