Album review

Benjamin Biolay

A Quiet New Talent

Paris 

06/07/2001 - 

There was no fuss or great media hype surrounding the release of Benjamin Biolay's debut album, Rose Kennedy, on Virgin earlier this month. On the contrary, the album was shrouded in an aura of modesty and discretion – much like the young singer-songwriter himself! Critics and music professionals have been busy (quietly) praising Monsieur Biolay's debut however. And rightly so, Rose Kennedy is a concept album which combines extraordinary melodies and beautifully-crafted songwriting. We caught up with Benjamin Biolay, under the vaulted arches of the Place des Vosges in Paris, and asked the 21st-century dandy a few questions about his new album and his career to date.

A Rose is a Rose is a Rose

Does the name Benjamin Biolay ring any bells? Well, it should, if you've been anywhere in France over the last year or so! The young singer-songwriter has filtered quietly through the French media in the past twelve months, lingering in the mind like some subliminal message. In fact, the pleasantly old-fashioned sounding name Biolay was associated with two of the most interesting albums released in 2000, namely Keren Ann's Biographie de Luka Philipsen and Henri Salvador's Chambre avec vue. Biolay collaborated closely in the writing of both albums, but having nothing concrete to offer up himself, the young scribe tended to be totally overlooked by the media. This seems highly unjust when you consider that the 28-year-old singer was responsible for co-writing one of the most popular songs of the moment, namely Henri Salvador's Jardin d'hiver (in collaboration with Keren Ann).

A young man given to a certain nostalgia for things past, Benjamin Biolay has chosen to weave his new album around the story of the legendary Kennedy clan, presided over by the supreme matriarch, Rose Kennedy (who passed away in 1995 at the ripe old age of 105).

"Rose isn't the only narrator on the album," Biolay points out in answer to our first question, "You occasionally get to see things through the eyes of John Kennedy or even the man who murdered Bob Kennedy, on the song Los Angeles, for example. The reason things are centred around Rose though is because I find her so emblematic of the Kennedy clan as a whole. She was the matriarch, the 'queen mother' who had to stand there and watch the disintegration of her 'empire', witnessing the deaths of her husband and children."

So in other words, he used a series of historic events as a means of channelling his own personal introspection? "Yes, of course I did,", the singer admits, "I'm a pretty private sort of person when it comes down to it. So I liked the idea of hiding myself behind characters and places from another era. It gave me sufficient distance to be able to express my own emotions in a calm, detached way, whether those emotions were ones of melancholy, grief or joy."

The History Man

One of Benjamin's pet subjects is history and when you get him onto the past there's no stopping him. In fact, he readily admits that one of the main ideas behind his new album was "to fuse two of my personal passions: songwriting and history. I started out writing the song Rose Kennedy and was going to leave it at that, but then I realised there was a whole world going on there and I decided to develop the theme at greater length. So, really, the album is the simple continuation of that one song."

The thirteen tracks on Benjamin Biolay's new album take the listener on a fascinating voyage through the strange and troubled history of America's most famous family. However, Biolay tackles his subject in a subliminal way. You won't find any explicit references to Kennedy biographies or actual historical events. In fact, we wonder whether if the title didn't mention Rose Kennedy in person, listeners would fathom that the album is about the Kennedys at all? "My new album isn't aimed at people who are interested in the Kennedys and their story," replies Biolay, "It was written for people with a passion for songs."

Message received loud and clear – and yet this album is steeped in history whichever way you look at it! "Well, the past is one of my major sources of inspiration," Biolay admits, "but no more or less than the present. In fact, I wouldn't say I'm more interested in the past than in what's going on around me right now. The way I see it, the past is always linked to the present. Things go round in a sort of never-ending loop. I'm the kind of person who always likes to know where things come from and how things have turned out the way they have." A sort of temporal schizophrenic hovering between past and present then? "Yes, I suppose that's true in a way," Biolay says with a smile, "And all the more so as in the course of writing my new album I really tried to put myself in Rose Kennedy's place. I tried to get a female perspective on things and convey that in the songwriting too."

Looking back on Biolay's own past we uncover a mix of classicism and modernity. The young musician started out with a classical education at the Conservatoire ("I had professional musical training when it came to the violin and brass instruments," he says, "But I taught myself piano and guitar and learnt how to write music simply by trying my hand at it."). After that the young Conservatoire student went on to experiment with various teenage bands. ("I think most of the groups I worked with in the early days of my career found me a real pain,Biolay says, I was a real tyrant laying down exactly what had to be done. I always wanted things my way and I refused to listen to anyone else's take on things. People really had to come up with something very original to impress me and even then all I'd say was 'Hmm, not bad!')

Biolay's successful collaboration with Keren Ann proves that he is capable of working on an equal footing with someone, however. "I suppose you could say that Keren Ann and I form a group in a way," he declares modestly, forgetting to mention that several critics have compared the pair's songwriting partnership to legendary American duos like Carole King and Gerry Goffin.

Inspiration(s)

As to the secret of the couple's songwriting partnership, this is something Biolay himself prefers to leave shrouded in mystery. "I think it would be a bit awkward to go round asking ourselves questions all the time, trying to establish who does what when, he says, As far as I'm concerned it's great to have met someone I've really clicked with, someone with whom I can share the really intimate moments of musical creation. And another good thing about working with Keren Ann is that you can stand back and take a more objective look at songs that you've written with someone else. It's a unique partnership that I hope lots of other songwriters have the good fortune to discover for themselves. But it's not easy finding the right person!"

Keren Ann and Benjamin Biolay share the same musical influences and the same personal 'pantheon', starting with the obvious choice of Serge Gainsbourg. "There's a little bit of everything I love in Gainsbourg's work,says Biolay, There's Chopin, Chuck Berry, Rimbaud and the odd bit of jazz too. And the other thing about Gainsbourg is that he was an absolute master when it came to rhythm. In fact, he once described himself as a 'Jewish nigger', a phrase people used about Gershwin in his time. What he meant by that, I think, is that he found a way of fusing the turpitude of his Slavic soul with black African and black American rhythms."

In fact, the stirring chords on Biolay's Joggers sur la plage immediately bring to mind the musical arrangements of another famous concept album: Gainsbourg's Melody Nelson. "Well, that wasn't something I deliberately set out to do, says Biolay, But it's only natural that influences have crept in somewhere because Melody Nelson was an album that changed my life. I was 13 when I first listened to it and it completely blew me away. What I really loved about Melody Nelson was the sheer poetry of it all. Listening to that album, I felt like a whole new world was opening up in front of me."

Another principal figure in Biolay's personal 'pantheon' is Françoise Hardy. Indeed, when he talks about his respect for Mademoiselle Hardy his eyes sparkle with real admiration: "Françoise Hardy is a brilliantly sophisticated songwriter. It's rare to find someone who writes with as much intelligence as she does. The thing with Françoise is that people tend to think of her as a 60s pop diva, stuck in her 'yéyé' period. But if you really listen to her work, it's not all fluffy pop songs. There's a real depth to her pop style. What I love about Françoise is that she's always so dignified and elegant and she's also a very modest person who has never gone out of her way to perpetuate her own myth. She's someone who's really given me a lot in my career."

Legendary chanson stars such as Charles Trenet and Henri Salvador also marked Biolay's early years, especially the latter. "I knew Salvador's songs just like everyone else," says Biolay, "You couldn't help but know them! But I actually got to meet him and that led to me really immersing myself in his music and re-discovering his best songs. It was absolutely brilliant working with him. I had to keep pinching myself because it was like a fairytale."

biolay.com

Benjamin Biolay is a man who has earned his reputation working secretly away behind the scenes. He released a first single in 1994, which sank without a trace. But three years later he came bounding back with several more (Le jour viendra, la Révolution). Meanwhile, Biolay put his formidable songwriting, arrangement and production talents at the service of other music stars including Henri Salvador, Keren Ann, his old friend Hubert Mounier (aka Cleet Boris from l'Affaire Louis Trio), Ol and Isabelle Boulay. What's more, rumour has it that the talented young songwriter has recently been working on Jane Birkin's new album and might well collaborate on Françoise Hardy's forthcoming opus. (Call it coincidence, but Gainsbourg wrote extensively for both women!)

Well-known for his perfectionist's eye to detail, Biolay has also been closely involved in the setting up of his new Internet site, which he promises has no link whatsoever to promoting his new album. "I absolutely loathe marketing of any kind," the singer says, "I didn't want the site to be there promoting or selling anything, but more as a kind of 'showcase' for my work. The graphics and the homepage are likely to change as we go along, but there's no way I want people clicking on the site and coming across a photo of a pair of shoes (the image on Biolay's new album cover). That's something I was very clear about from the word go. I wanted the Internet site to be completely separate, in a category of its own. It gives people an insight into my songs and the way I work in general. Internet is a brilliant new medium. It's amazing how much you can do with it. But I wanted it to be completely separate from the rest of my work. I wanted the album to be an album, nothing more hi-tech than that!"

Navigating your way round Biolay's website is a rather vague, surreal business for the moment. But when it comes to other sectors of his career, the young singer-songwriter is strikingly clear (despite his surface nonchalance). "I have to admit touring is not one of my great priorities in life right now," Biolay declares, "I prefer working in the studio. But if I were fortunate enough to develop a strong public following, it would be natural to take my work on the road and present a different interpretation of my songs."

Given his pleasant interview manner and his beautifully-crafted songwriting, we detect the makings of a future great in Benjamin Biolay.

Catherine  Pouplain - Pédron

Translation : Julie  Street