Vincent Delerm or the best illustration of Chanson Française

Always, fuzzy concept,« la chanson française » is the French cultural exception, a mix of literature, poetry and pure French folk. For the Victoires de la Musique 2017, try to embrace the melodious nostalgic melancholy with the Bohemian master of the genre, Vincent Delerm.

Have you even tried the sweet test of chanson française? Thanks to night calls and pintsnight calls and pints, you turn up the volume of the music and the new DJ you decided to be is keen to educate your drunk mates with your local speciality. Chanson française is as good as it gets and you oddly kept screaming the coq au vin over French words on hazy Black and White soundtrack like in a Sans-Culotte revolt. Hangover memories are not the best, but the face of your friends is an obsessive issue. What’s wrong with la chanson française?

Well, nothing, except they can’t understand the beauty of it. Chanson française are you sure? Not variété française? Yes I am. And as French people love putting things in endless boxes, we don’t mix apples and oranges (maybe for a smoothie) and you’ve got to know who’s who. By chance, television, radio and newspapers put a familiar face as the divine example : Vincent Delerm.

The singer, fan of The Cure and Pulp, likes singing with Neil Hannon staging with deadpan jokes became as famous as his father and even released 3 photo books. Wow. Stop. too much information. Another son of? And what about sorting out the box things? Calm down. I know but wait for it, the guy likes breaking walls with easiness and, yes, let’s say, style!

Well, not about fashion, the man next door with White sneakers and dark clothes grew from 200s from Black hair to Grey one. After all, he is the one who stages with trendy singers, as well French song legends and turn actresses into singers like Gainsbourg did. Listening to 9 albums by former student becoming dad, reading his books and discovering his new event at Philharmonie de Paris, a French feeling seems emerging and a shocking fact. The really talkative singer chose pictures to express his silence mind in book trilogy. L’été sans fin (Endless Summer) is celebrated in pictures of break during summer heats, in a hat near rosé wine or flip flop in the sand. Like freezing time in the consumer world and reminder of good time as Martin Parr would love it. No surprise his dad Philippe Delerm knows how to enjoy tiny moments as the author of We Could Almost Eat Outside: An Appreciation of Life’s Small Pleasures but melancholy is never far, on kitchen table before lunch, empty rooms before rush hours, enjoying things like before – like in the life of Leonard, child hero of this kid political book, Leonard a une sensibilité de gauche (Leonard had a Left-wing sensibility).

Oh really? Are we talking about socialism? Don’t forget that one of his new hit songs Tes Parents (Your Parents) quotes France Inter, Telerama, ecologist. Really Boho touch but clever French stereotype enjoying Shakespeare and looking for secondhand booksellers on banks of Seine river taking a look at Parisian girls and a lot of authors. Maybe too many names? Well Delerm is a lover of proper names, sometimes criticized about this name dumping. But if blogging marketing had a artistic goal, Vincent Delerm would be the Ted thinker !

And like a lot of French artists, his Latest album sounds tragic as a legacy of the Paris attack, especially with the hopeful sound Je ne veux pas mourir ce soir (I don’t want to die tonight.) But even in sadness, he knows how to lift up the corners of the mouth. Blame it on Souchon maybe. Uncle Alain, as he called him, inspired him so much with his accurate words, love fantasy all over the world, from Evreux to Kensington Square but also criticizes the image of Beauty in Sous les Avalanches, his tribute to his new worldwide beauty, Miss France.

But where is it from?

As his writer father revealed part of the secret in his late released book. His diary of the eighties, Journal d’un homme heureux (Diary of a happy man), focused on his family, including his son. Autobiography of author can be very intrusive but I got everything : from the kid crying in front of classic literature, the child gathering audience during Sunday family and enjoying sports before paying tribute to Patrick Vieira or Steffi Graf. The genesis of an artist by his own family or the current « expression of a kid dream », who came out from the 2000s generation with its kind of culture. The young highschool student I used to be was taught about Bukowski, Modiano, Truffaut, Lelouch, Veruca Salt (and Frank Black), Nick Drake and François de Roubaix. See the pop lover…So when he became the godfather of new fav French rock band Radio Elvis for the 2017 Victoires de la musique, the music French awards (They did it!!! Congrats). Pop goes my heart. As well as its urges me to listen to music from Hacienda, bringing back the wistfulness of Madchester, like the homesickness meds and showing hand-overs with new generation He used to get.

Let’s hang out together !