My dancing playlist reviewed by a a complete stranger

Claire Laffut, Bonnie Banane, Lous and the Yakuza... How the French-speaking musical scene makes me currently dance

As I started to write in english for my school, I may share some of my writings and exercises there. It will force me to revise it. 

Critically review one of your spotify lists as if you were a reviewer. Look at the titles of the music, the first impressions it might make, what type of person might listen to this and look for other links or themes: lyrics, music types, instrumentation. 

The playlist opens with Claire Laffut, the Belgian multitasker young woman, here plastic artist, here singer, here composer, sings “Étrange Mélange”. With her sweet and velvety voice, she sings about missing someone; “je fais des rêves bizarres, avec un soupçon de toi”, I have weird dreams, with a hint of you. The sonorities are Hawaiian-inspired chords, islander and sunny rhythms emphasized by the words “Dolce vita”, “raves parties”, “vida loca”. It feels like sunshine warming our skin.  

Then, Lous and The Yakuza, a Belgian-Congolese rapper, keeps us dancing. “Dilemme” plays a childish instrumental, sounding paradoxically like a nursery rhyme when she sings about adult life and responsibilities. “Dilemme” is a song in which she expresses that if she could, she would live lonely, far away from problems and dilemmas. The rap-inspired backs and instrumental create a paradox between the childish “na na na na” and the subject. She repeats “alone” to suggest how being around loved ones and connections is hard because it comes with worries.  

 

LewisOfMan’s songs are also the kind to make you swing your head irrepressibly. With melodious, satisfying chords. “Attitude” is a very catchy song, that makes you want to get up and move, and celebrate self-confidence. Some very solemn orgua and the woman’s voice make the whole thing as the same time derisory and very serious. It has 80’s sonorities, very retro and synthetized. “Je pense à toi” is a solar song about someone the singer thinks a lot. He does not say much more than “I am thinking about you when you’re not here”. The lyrics are simple, the voice is calm but not sad, the rhythm is dancing, still. The guitar does this Hawaiian thing that flies us on an island with sun and coconuts.  

 

Those French-speaking insular artists rubs shoulders with a group of the other side of the channel, Yes, and their “Owner of a Lonely Heart”. The playlist is covered with reflections around loneliness. But there is also a taste for frearless adventure, a youthful desire to break the rules with rock’n’roll. It keeps reminding us not to bend under everyday life and codes.  

 

Bonnie Banane brings us back to the Frenchies, her voice is a high-pitched echo singing on electronical, melodious sonorities. The track “Relax” has a spatial echo, something really technological but still smoothly, slowly, dancing. There is still something innocent, childish, lightweight that, undoubtedly, relaxes us. The second Bonnie Banane’s song in this playlist, “L’appétit”, is more rhythmic, faster, it is a feminist song in which she tells that she ate the apple and she is still hungry : “L’appétit vient en mangeant”, appetite comes with eating. Vocal chords accompanies the lyrics and keeps the track on a quite psychelic path.  

 

“Orfeo Ed Euridice : Dance Of The Blessed Spirits” brings the playlist to a close. The partition is about Orfeo who is allowed to resurrected Euridice but only if he does not look at her as he leads her to the exit. When he does, she is hurt of him not looking at her or not speaking to her. She keeps asking what is wrong. So he finally looks at her, and he loses her. The piece is as beautiful as the story. 

 

The whole playlist is led by dancing feet, sunshine cravings and a current love for afro-inspired electronical riddims. The person who listens to it must obviously love to dance -as it is, to her, the best way to enjoy music fully- and may deal with some loneliness times.  

 

Pic by : Mohammad Metri