C'est Absurde

I have had a lot of fun researching popular French music mostly because it seems that the French never take themselves too seriously. I found a washed-up pop star named Anggun, a mother’s favorite named Barbara Carlotti, a cool singer songwriter named Thomas Fersen, a comic singer named Fatal Bazooka, a popular rap group named TTC, and the star of the moment, Yelle.
Anggun is clearly a bit washed-up now but she had a few hits in 1996. She kind of reminds one of a French Jessica Simpson with decent voice, pretty face, and semi-decent dance skills. Her music is pretty catchy even if it is over-the-top poppy. One of my favorite songs of hers, “Just Etre Une Femme” is shockingly and funnily enough about a transvestite. It’s kind of confusing for me since I don’t understand French very well but even so, I don’t think the song makes much sense because she is actually singing from the prospective of someone that “just wants to be a woman.” Is Anggun a transvestite secretly? I think not, but translating the piece was quite funny.
Barbara Carlotti also doesn’t have the most amazing voice but it is kind of soultry. She is definitely a more serious singer songwriter and I bet she is pretty popular with moms around the country. I particularly liked her song, “L’idéal,” “Mademoiselle Gaossum,” and “Le Chant des Sirènes.”
Another singer songwriter I found was Thomas Fersen who has a really catchy song called “Deux Pieds,” or “Two Feet.” The song is basically about him, a lazy young guy, who has pissed off his girlfriend and who doesn’t really care. You can get a pretty accurate reading of how a lot of French guys act; easy going and indifferent when it comes to drama with girls.
Once I found TTC, things started to get more interesting. The rap group has a really interesting sound with a lot of different types of voices chiming into each song. TTC seems to be extremely popular based on the fact that their videos are of a pretty good quality, in fact, the best I’ve seen of a French group to date.
The most popular group it seems right now is Yelle, a group headed by Julie Bedot. She is kind of like Uffie in the way that she can’t really sing or rap but kind of puts the two styles together and somehow comes out with something sounding pretty fresh. If that doesn’t explain it, maybe this will—she wears a lot of Jeremy Scott clothes such as his French fry shoes. Funnily enough, upon reading about the group Yelle on Wiki, I found that Yelle had become popular after putting a song making-fun of TTC onto Myspace.
Yelle led me to discovering Fatal Bazooka because she is in one of his most popular videos, “Parler à ma main,” or “Talk to the Hand.” Fatal Bazooka is a comic who puts out rap videos that make fun of American rap stars. Even without being able to translate the lyrics fully, the absurdity of the videos and Bazooka’s constant drag acts definitely translates his humor.