Customer Reviews

Memoire Neuve

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The songs are in French (except Hear no more ... heavily accented and charmingly warbled in English) as DOMINIQUE A is a French Pop Artist with "sensitive soulfull lyrics". There are some sensual female backing vocals as well. I found this CD captivating, the songs are quite different from the others. There is a great mix of airy, light, almost lilting voice and sadder, darker presentations. "Les Hauts Quartiers de Peine" is haunting, it reminded me of a boy meets girl, boy loves girl, boy loses girl foreign film soundtrack. "Ainsi, Parfois" and "La Memoire Neuve " are crooning melodies a la Morrissey accompanied by a mornful strummed guitar. "Le Vie Rend Modeste" has a fast tempo in Adam Ant style. "Le Ravalement des Façades" struck me as what Peter Murphy might sound like singing a dark French tune. "Tutti va Bene" starts flirty and, well ... naughty. *smirk* There is a bit of English in this song as well, and it seems he was ditched later in the song. Ah angst Français ...

this is a lovely, lovely album, but "catchy" doesn't exactly describe the music. it's pretty minimal, a bit like a less noisy latter day tom waits. and he has such a darned sweet voice. lyrics are uniformly sad, thoughtful, poetic, and odd. one of my favorites. the other one available, ... "la fossette", is nice too, but VERY minimal --- him tapping on glasses, or playing a few notes on a guitar with a cheap drum machine.

I saw the video for "Twenty Two Bar" a few times when I was in France in 1995. It was a charming video and a charming song, and my interest was definitely piqued. I asked my friends who Dominique A was; nobody seemed to know. I began to look around for the CD, but couldn't find it (unfortunately I was in a smallish city not exactly renowned for its record shopping.) Anyway, long story short, found the album on amazon.com, bought it just for one song, but don't regret the purchase at all: There's not a duff track on here. Now I just want to know one thing: Whatever happened to Dominique A?

You should listen to Dominique A if you want to know what is the current best french singer.