Customer Reviews

Les Risques Du Metier

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

 

 

Benebar's "Les Risques du Metier" (The Risks of the Trade) is one fantastic record, whether you understand French or not, doesn't matter. Benebar's music is somewhat retro but nonetheless timeless and entertaining. He can swing through various styles of music like rock, jazz, French folk, and a little cabaret, but the album has a cohesiveness that's testament to Benebar's ability to write catchy hooks. My favorites are "Paresseuse" (Lazy Girl) and "Dis-Lui Oui" (Tell Him Yes) and "Les Mots d'Amour" (The Words of Love) but all the tracks are really good. I hope Benebar can do some shows in the USA, hopefully NYC.

This album, Les Risques Du Metier, has become one of my favorite CDs. Benabar has a cool, smokey, loungey voice. His music is fun, with lots of piano and horns. This album is a collection of mostly mid-tempo tunes with some slower tempo songs.

This album is unlike any I've heard in English or in French, and recommend it highly!

Les Risques du Metier is sly, funny pop, songs that place a definite emphasis on lyrics, on state of mind, and on Benabar's skewed, wry, and hilarious view of the world. What's great about this record is that it's not just "ironic" pop; Benabar uses his barbed lyrics and hilarious metaphors to reveal enough about his state of mind and feelings for the listener to feel a connection with the artist himself, not just his demeanor.

On the best songs, such as Sac a main and dis-lui oui, Benabar reveals just enough of his emotional state through the jokey lyrics for the songs to make a double impression: he has real feelings, even though he manages to maintain an illusion of ironic distance. Some of the other ones, though, are a little too maudlin and melodramatic for my taste.

If you like this record, look for Jeanne Cherhal's Douze fois par an. It's the same kind of music, or Les Senegalaises, by Sanseverino, which is similarly wry.

If I could match it up with an English-language record, it would probably be similar to one of the first two Ben Folds Five records.

I'm American, and I saw Benabar at a concert while I was in France, and I can't get enough of him now. This CD is fabulous, the instrumentation is creative and refreshing, and the lyrics are humorous.

I bought this album while at the airport in Paris, based on nothing but the proclomation on the cover that it had won some major music award. Impulse purchases like that can make you not only poor, but sorry. Not in this case; the album was even better than I thought it would be.

Benebar has the smooth silky voice of your traditional chanteur (think Charles Trenet) but his material is definitely modern. Sometimes humorous, sometimes wistful, always very French, and almost always enjoyable. There are songs for rainy days, songs for sunny, funny days, and songs for when you just wake up and feel the need to escape. I particularly recommend it for Saturday afternoons when you are stuck cleaning your apartment/house.