E-Mail This Article to a Friend Ils ne regrettent rien Mylene Farmer and the new breed of French variété BY MICHAEL FREEDBERG
	Related Links Michael Freedberg reviews Mylene Farmer's Remixes

"Fuck Them All." That’s the single from Mylene Farmer’s new Avant que l’ombre (Universal France). Directed at bureaucrats, warmongers, and guest-list keepers at nightclub doors? Well, yes, but not in anger. "Fuck Them All" is a statement of sexual purpose, supported — and made delicious — by Laurent Boutonnat’s lush, multi-layered-rhythm/ goth-rock/female-chorus/ plaintive-piano obbligato. The song vibrates and shines and pushes itself happily forward.

The music of Mylene Farmer and Laurent Boutonnat has revolutionized French variété. Edith Piaf and Barbara brought variété to worldwide fame; Serge Gainsbourg with Jane Birkin, France Gall, Etienne Daho, Indochine, Niagara, and Francis Cabrel expanded it. Since their first CD, 1987’s Cendres de lune (Polydor), Farmer and Boutonnat have created five more studio CDs, two live ones (notably 1997’s Live à Bercy, on PolyGram International), and several singles. Dozens, if not hundreds, of Farmer compilations or dance-club remixes — most of them bootlegs — are available in Japan, Poland, Russia, Germany, China, Turkey, and even the US.

Farmer’s theme — most fully expressed in 1999’s Innamoramento (Polydor) and reprised, finally, on Avant que l’ombre — is that one should live as passionately as possible and, if you like, outside all of society’s bounds. This is the message of the 1989 single "Que mon cœur lâche" and of "Psychiatric" (1991’s L’autre . . . ). Of "Je te rends ton amour" (Innamoramento), in which she scorns the artist who wants to paint her love superficially in his eyes rather than explosively in hers. Of the sado-masochistic "Allan" (1989’s Ainsi soit je . . . ). And of "Sans contrefaçon" (Ainsi soit je . . . ), in which Farmer, playing a child’s dress-up game, imagines her pantalooned self a boy. It’s the message of her regrets, whether she’s disenchanted with life in "Désenchantée" (L’autre . . . ), sleeping away a beautiful day instead of making love in the 2001 single "C’est une belle journée," approaching old age in "Et si viellir m’était conte" (Innamoramento), or approaching death in "Avant que l’ombre." Passionate extremism fuels the wonderment of "Sans logique" (Ainsi soit je . . . ) and the magical mystery tour that is "Mylénium" (Innamoramento). It gives urgency to the sexuality of "XXL" (1995’s Anamorphosée) and to "Aime," "Peut-être toi," and "J’attends" (Avant que l’ombre). It dramatizes the love-you-to-death story in the 1989 B-side "La veuve noire" and tones her praise of the joy of exercising one’s imagination in "Rêver" (Anamorphosée), the Petit Prince–inspired "Dessine-moi un mouton" (Innamoramento), and the 1999 single "Les effets secondaires." On Ainsi soit je . . . , Farmer recited Charles Baudelaire’s "L’horloge," a poem about the inevitable onrush of time. Avant que l’ombre suggests his "Enivrez-vous." "Il est l’heure de s’enivrer sans cesse. De vin, de poésie, ou de vertu, à votre guise": "It’s the hour to be unceasingly intoxicated. With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you please."

The regret is the obverse of Piaf’s "Non je ne regrette rien"; the joy — "Fuck them all" included — bespeaks all that one must not regret. In variété, where fans know the words of songs from 20, 40, even 60 years back, such issues matter. They ensure the continuity of the genre, even as Farmer reconstitutes it.

So what happens to variété next? William Sheller, already a 30-year veteran of the idiom, is a star in France but unknown in America. Yet he’s practically an American himself. He grew up in Cleveland, the son of jazz musician Jack Hand and a French World War II bride. After his mother took him back to France, he came under the tutelage of cabaret mega-star Barbara. Since the mid 1970s, he’s been recording his rock-and-soul-influenced variété updates, of which last year’s Épures (Universal France) is the latest. His subject matter — love and lovers, the seasons, the artist in his hotel room, machines and their consequences — and almost vaudevillian tenor recall a style of English-language pop that’s all but disappeared with the death of Bobby Short.

Italian supermodel Carla Bruni’s work is as acoustic as Sheller’s but much closer to the textures of today’s urban folk. Her 2002 CD Quelqu’un m’a dit is now available in the US from Naïve/V2. Geneva club DJ Miss Kittin’s 2004 CD I.com (Astralwerks), on the other hand, is electronic and orchestral, a self-portrait that’s contemplative but also rocks.

Brigitte Fontaine’s Rue St-Louis en l’Île (EMI France), 14 songs as diverse as the Paris in which they’re set, still awaits American release. Fontaine, whose gravelly recitative voice is influenced as much by Marianne Faithfull as by Piaf, is featured on French blue-rock band Noir Désir’s 2001 CD Des visages des figures (PolyGram International), where on "L’Europe" she delivers, in a harsh chant as alarming as its message, a vision of surreal consumer society losing all reason. On her own CD she sings more with older-sisterish wit. Her subject matter takes in crazy love ("Folle"), guys with Harleys ("L’homme à la moto"), desperately searching singles ("Betty Boop en août"), wife and husband ("Fréhel"), the seasons ("Éloge de l’hiver"), wearing headscarves in school ("Le voile à l’école," a major anti-Muslim issue in France right now), and, in the title song, life in the heart of Paris.

Also undistributed in the US is Melissa Mars. Her second CD, La reine des abeilles (Universal France), gives us a young woman who’s less the queen of bees than an adventuress in search of who she is and how she fits in, if in fact she does fit in, and who’s enjoying every minute, whether just saying "Hi" ("And I Hate You"), confessing ("Je me confesse"), finding peace in a peaceless world ("Dans mon bulle antisismique"), or sharing a pillow talk ("Il pleut sur l’oreiller"). Mars sings dangerously close to the mike, drawing you deep inside her lacy whisper, which is full of lovable flaws. Her soprano sounds remarkably like that of the young Jane Birkin 35 years ago.

But no variété singer owes more to Jane Birkin’s conversational approach than Zazie. Recently her songs have taken on more of urban folk’s tonal complexity. Her evolution continues. On Rodéo (Universal France), several numbers adopt the orchestral richness and rhythmic tension of Boutonnat’s Farmer songs. More surprising is "Slow," an open, rock-ballad melody of the sort you’d hear often on Montreal radio but seldom in variété. In these and in her own witty and catchy "Excuse-moi" and "Doolididom," Zazie voices two themes: all dreams are permitted ("Doolididom"), and pardon me but I’m going to make love to you ("Excuse-moi"). Farmer would endorse the latter view, but she’d make her point poetically; Zazie says her say in plainspoken prose. It’s the difference between Baudelaire and Flaubert, or Montaigne and Paris Match. Unlike Farmer’s music of rebellious transcendence, Zazie’s songs keep both feet on the ground. They will not remake your soul — but they are useful to your daily decisions.