The CD sleeve depicts the underworld of the subconscious, a black and white blend of faces and dark shapes. It was designed by M/M (copying a similar design they had done for a Björk album), and gives the impression of some sort of intellectual labyrinth. Thankfully, the album isn't like that – it is certainly disquieting, but is also bursting with life and energy.
The album has a real musical depth to it. There is plenty of pop, of course, but also a strong rock sound, lush textures, some ska (Cours!), ballads, children's and women's voices, choirs, strings. Six of the tracks were recorded in a church in Lyon. The first single from the album, the confessional l'Histoire d'un garçon ("The petal or the thorn / I don't know which to choose / The sun or the shadow / I don't know which to choose / I'm scared I'm digging my grave") features a symphonic rock type chorus, as do Ma chair est tendre and Mon amour m'a baisé, which has a rhythmic energy that has "hit" written all over it. Heavy guitars and thumping drums accompany a newly aggressive Biolay. His voice, until now rather shy, is more assured as he finally opens his lungs – a little, at least!
Urban rage
What's really new about this album is the urban, electronic sound of a lot of this album. Biolay finds electronic inspiration in the
l'Appât as well as
Tant le ciel était sombre, a dense, sinister but also lyrical track which blends children's voices, classical orchestra, rock and electro. Boombass produce three tracks including
A l'origine, inspired by the tribulations of fatherhood (Biolay dedicated the album to his daughter). The track finishes in an accumulation of noises and children's cries which evoke the unravelled end of the
A Day in The Life by Beatles, who are thanked in the sleeve notes. A sombre, urban feel comes across in the dark electricity of
Ground Zero bar, a personal vision of 9/11: "
A prayer for our heroes, because in this deadbeat hangout, we even take the bus to the Ground Zero bar..."¹.
There are no Biolay albums without seductive melodies, and on the melancholic Adieu triste amour he duets with Françoise Hardy for whom he wrote three songs last autumn. Hardy can also be heard on Mon amour m'a baisé. A touch gloomy (Mes peines de coeur, Me voilà bien), sometimes painful (Même si tu pars), these laments get straight to the heart of things. Biolay uses his lyrical talent to good purpose on Dans mon dos where he gently reprimands his former acolyte Keren Ann, whom Biolay feels has too quickly forgotten their partnership: "Behind my back, you spread out / Everywhere and all the time / You swear to everyone that I love the taste of blood (...) Mademoiselle spreads base rumours / Hand over her heart. And the title Ma chair est tendre is no doubt an allusion to Ma chère et tendre by Henri Salvador, with whom Biolay has had a falling out over the past few months.
Not like the others
Will this album prove to be a commercial success? It is certainly more accessible, more spirited, and full of melodic hooks, and
A l'origine may attract a wider audience. But Biolay, who confesses that "
I just can't listen to Bénabar and all that student party type music."² is careful to preserve his uniqueness. He prefers artists such as Camille, Florent Marchet or Emilie Simon – people he considers as truly innovative, rather than recyclers of old ideas. His sales (70,000 for his first CD, 100,000 for the second) have never been much competition for the likes of Sanseverino (200,000 for
Tango des Gens) or Delerm (400,000). But Biolay doesn't care. What he has over other artists is versatility, as a writer and arranger (for Elsa, Hardy, Gréco, Boulay, Mounier, Clerc, Winter & Bogue and others), soundtrack composer (for Arnaud Viard's
Clara et moi), novelist (his novel will be published in the autumn by Denoël), the
Home 2 album he made with his wife Chiara Mastroianni, an album for the young Daphné (V2) and a clip made by Claire Denis. What more could he want? Success in the U.S., perhaps? He's already working on it!
A l'origine is his first album to be released locally in the States (among other countries), and on 27 March, the
New York Times did a major feature on him entitled
Le Pop Star. Biolay rejects the idea that he's Gainsbourg's successor. And yet ...
¹ Intriguingly, there is an astonishing and so far unreleased track called Mr Président written by Biolay and Boom Bass available only from the website misterpresident.net.
² From the fan site kerenann.net/bbiolay/forum which Biolay contributes to occasionally.
