23 November 2009

Robots after all



A common denominator to a lot of best-of-decade lists surely is Daft Punk, really the ultimate crossover dance act everyone could agree on over the past ten years. I don't really mind this; I quite like them and their tremendous influence on our culture is pretty positive. (There are many worse things Kanye West could have gotten into.) But for my money, the pounding French house + rock riffage thing only does so much. In 2005, when the world was going nuts for Human After All, I was rather more taken with a cheerfully demented retort, Robots après tout, the eighth album by French pop singer Philippe Katerine. Here in 'Le train de 19h', if my French isn't mistaken, he sings about a train ride in which the conductor makes lewd puns, a young woman reads The Portrait of Dorian Gray while stroking her hair flirtatiously, and a fluorescent-haired art student claims to be endowed with the talent of self-fellation. In any case the journey ends with Katerine frantically shouting "Kiss me! Kiss me! Kiss me!" Like much of Katerine's output it's all kinda WTF, but this shit is rad.

1 comment:

robot hero said...

i like this, i wish i understood it, but the music is great.