ma folie, mon envie, ma lubie, mon idylle

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

This is perhaps my biggest recent surprise: I had only the dimmest awareness of Vanessa Paradis' pop career, but it transpires that not only is it still going, it's really very good. This is 'Divine Idylle', the single off her new album Divinidylle, which I only discovered after being commissioned to review it.

It reminds me most of Paris Hilton's album - not just the breezy soft rock music or the way Vanessa somehow makes her inability to sustain a note for more than a second seem like a strength (their voices really are very similar! we should have noticed this when Paris came out!), but there's a (WILDEAN) decadence to the lightness, in the way both Paris and Vanessa wrap themselves up - gild themselves - in their charmingly inconsequential vignettes. Key quote from the Paradis wikipedia entry: "They divide their time between houses in the Hollywood Hills and their farm in the South of France, and also own apartments in Paris, Manhattan and an island in the Bahamas."

Comments

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

A few years back I held a vague grudge against Vanessa for taking Johnny Depp 'off the market'. This is a pretty little song though.

[fathands.livejournal.com]

It's pretty damn indie, are you coming down with something?

Lemon Bagel Surfers

[koganbot]

Paradis had a U.S. album in the '90s that was terrible I'd ever heard (her version of the Velvet Underground's "Waiting For My Man" is one of the worst things I have heard in my life), but she has a Taxi song ("Joe Le Taxi"?) that I like quite well. Other than that, I know little about her, except I saw her in a movie once where I recall her acting well even though it was stupid and French.

Johnny Depp was once being interviewed in Smash Hits when he was still on 21 Jump Street or whatever it was called and he was asked what the name of his favorite group was and then Smash Hits wrote "We couldn't quite hear his response but we think he said, 'The Lemon Bagel Surfers.'" (In other words, he'd said "The Butthole Surfers" and Smash Hits decided they couldn't print that name.)

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

Divine Idylle is really lovely- I heard it a lot when I was on holiday with my parents this summer. It made me think of a not-shit version of The Pipettes, not to mention the lyrics are absolutely adorable.