Category: World
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Given that this release is on Prosthetic Records, I was naturally expecting some loud and blazing — if not downright brutal — metal when I first listened to it. Surprisingly, much of the instrumental album by this guitar prodigy isn’t metal at all. Songs like “Viroliano Tries Metal” and “Triangle Tune” are definitely in that…
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Those of you who read my Asian music reviews on Otaku may remember that I reviewed K-Pop star BoA’s latest Japanese-language single “Tail of Hope” not too long ago. If not, you can find my cheerful review here: http://otaku.collectiondx.com/musicreview/boa-tail-hope I basically declared it sonic bliss. Well, today an English language version of “Tail of Hope”…
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Back in April I reviewed Spanish singer/songwriter Virginia Labuat’s English-language debut, Night & Day, and the review couldn’t have been more positive. Sometimes when I read reviews I’ve written some months later, I’ll find myself thinking that I poured it on a bit too thickly, that I perhaps gave too much praise, thus coming across…
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Sophie Maurin is a new French pop singer/songwriter who seems to be taking France by storm, or at least that’s the impression I’ve gotten from the things I’ve read about her online. Regardless, her music is amazing. And the artists I’d most compare her to aren’t even French artists, actually. Her style of whimsical songwriting…
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I started covering Paola & Chiara over a decade ago when I was writing a world music column called Import Zone for Lollipop magazine. (I couldn’t find every column I wrote about them in, but I did manage to find the one with my review of their 2002 album Festival, which you can read here:…
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The French band Indochine have now been at it for 32 years and are usually regarded in the way people regard musical gods like U2, The Beatles and Johnny Cash. In other words, people consider their music a form of high art and deem them music royalty. Well, their fans do anyway. And they have…
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Lou Doillon might be unknown to most people here in the United States, but in her native France she’s practically royalty, being the daughter of the famous French singer/actress Jane Birkin and the acclaimed film director Jacques Doillon. She’s also the half-sister of actress/singer Charlotte Gainsbourg and step-daughter of the late French singer/songwriter Serge Gainsbourg.…
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Many of the people who’ll be reading this review know almost nothing about Vanessa Paradis. To most people here in the United States, she’s simply known as Johnny Depp’s longtime girlfriend, as they were together from 1998 until 2012 and had two children. Some people might have read that Vanessa is a popular singer or…
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Until recently, I thought that Diplo and Major Lazer were two different people. Alas, I was wrong. Diplo is Major Lazer, Major Lazer being his reggae-ish alter-ego. Although many of the songs on Free the Universe stray pretty far from reggae. And I have to say — this is a very difficult album to digest.…
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Night & Day is Spanish singer/songwriter Virginia Labuat’s first album entirely in English, but you’d never know that from listening to it. Her pronunciation is better than that of many artists whose only language is English and her command of the language in her lyrics is always spot on, sans awkward phrasing. Suffice to say…
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It’s appropriate that the album cover of Carla Bruni’s fourth album, Little French Songs, is a simple photo of the Italian-French singer and a presumably acoustic guitar because, well, that’s what the majority of this album consists of, Carla simply singing along to acoustic guitar. To that end, it’s so very mellow that it could…
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It’s funny — I can review music in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Italian, Greek, etc, but when it comes to French I always struggle. The problem is that I know some French, but I’m far from being fluent, so I understand just enough of the lyrics to get a general idea of what a song is…
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Mylène Farmer is, by far, the most successful singer of all-time in France. Celine Dion hasn’t even come close to selling the number of albums Mylène has sold there. Even in Canada, where Mylène was born, she rivals Celine. She’s hugely popular in other countries, too, having completed sold out tours of Russia before her…
