One Buck Records: The French Connection: It's Nolwenn (Ohwo!)

Saturday, May 11, 2024

The French Connection: It's Nolwenn (Ohwo!)

Merc'h Breizhat, or "girl from Brittany", if I haven't totally fucked up my attempts at the local language. Nolwenn Leroy is indeed proudly brétonne, and if you check out her music in our One Buck Record of the day you will find, that ignoring this fact is impossible when listening to her music. She made an entire record of traditional tunes and songs about Britanny with 2010's Bretonne which also became her biggest international seller, begetting a special edition with a bonus disc of British folk songs and two Mike Oldfield covers, which in turn became the basis for an album issued in the US in 2013, Nolwenn.

Nolwenn is singing in a ton of languages on this extensive 40-track compilation.A Little more than half are in her Native French, but she also sings in Gaelic for the fantastic "Mna Na H-Eirann", in Bréton for a couple of songs and English for more than a third. So, don't worry if you are only a budding francophile, there's plenty of stuff to like here, even if French leaves you baffled. Since Nolwenn covers so much terrain, you will find things to like here if you like intelligent French pop, but also if you like traditional British folk (she covers, among others, "Greensleeves" and "Scarborough Fair"), if you like (quote-unquote) 'world music', and generally speaking if you like intelligent, well-made music that just might happen to be in French, you should check out Merc'h Breizhat.

Leroy clearly grew up on the music of the mid- to late Eighties, having the good taste to cover "Running Up That Hill", a long time before Stranger Things made it a hit record again, but also Cyndi Lauper ("Time After Time"), ntional idol FRance Gall and her megahit "Elle Elle L'a", but also - as mentioned above - "Mike Oldfield ("Moonlight Shadow" and "Lost In France"), even Jevetta Steele's "Calling You" from cult classic Bagdad Café. Francis Cabrel is a lesser known name internationally, but he is one of France's premier singer-songwriters, so her cover of "Je t'aimais, je t'aime et je t'amerais' is most welcome.

Nolwenn won a musical television contest, in this case Star Academy - a mix between Big Brother and something like American Idol - but don't hold that against her. Granted, her self-titled debut still betrays its origins as a TV spin-off product, relying on big ballads, but from 2005's Histoires Naturelles and its huge lead-off single "Nolwenn Ohwo!" on, she was in full control of her music. "Nolwenn Ohwo!" was the single that made me take notice, not only because the song is ultra-catchy, but because it's really well-produced. And because it's fun to have a singer giving herself her own 'theme song', here used to downplay accusations of arrogance that her time in the Star Academy house brought her. Coupled with her aristocratic name (her stage name, Leroy, is her mother' maiden name, but her real name is Le Magueresse, also carrying hints of vieille noblesse with it), she was accused of being a snob, with her song insistingotherwise: "Je ne me prends pas pour une reine / J'étais comme je suis, Nolwenn, ohwo! / Rien a changé, j'ai toujours peur le soir". It's essentially her "Jenny From The Block", but unlike Jennifer Lopez' fake-as-all-hell bullshit, you want and do believe her.