Wednesday 28 June 2017

Vive le Rock 'n Roll


Rating: 4/5

Review:
Very enjoyable stuff



This is a lot of fun.  I was only dimly aware of French Rock & Roll at the time and I'm glad to have this as a sample now.

I didn't know any of these tracks before hearing the album; they turned out to be largely at the rockabilly/punky end of the spectrum – with s few notable exceptions like 39 de Fevre, which is a rather inferior remake of Peggy Lee's Classic, Fever.  Most, though, are high-energy and a bit crudely done which gives them an impact which I like a lot.  The two closing tracks are Johnny Hallyday hammering his guitar and singing Heartbreak Hotel and Tutti Frutti frenetically into a cheap tape recorder in his bedroom, well before he got a recording contract.  The quality is terrible, but they're actually rather enjoyable in their way.

The sound quality is pretty good – although it's a bit woolly on some tracks which, combined with French pronunciation and slight inattention, led me to mishear "Mon mari c'est Frankenstein" and think that Nicole Paquin's husband was called Stan and that she had applied a most indelicate adjective to his name.

Amusing mistranslations aside, this is a really enjoyable album of very decent quality Rock & Roll which I can recommend warmly.

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