Fillmore in Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer has a really acerbic (enjoyable?) rant against the French. "I use to rave about them," he spit, "but that was all literature." He dubs them cruel and mercenary, selfish to the core, self-righteous, ever guilty of avarice.But here's the rub: The French are quite deft at masking their matchless cynicism with beauty. The written word, architecture, fucking pastry. Or synth pop. Lately, So Young But So Cold: Underground French Music 1977-1983 has been occupying much of my free time. I play Nini Raviolette's "Suis-je Normale" on repeat. It's rather minimal in structure: heart-monitor beeps, languid, mood-setting background synths, and Raviolette's breathy inner-scrutiny ("Am I normal?" she keeps asking in French). There's no rhythm section to speak of: the song just floats along, occupying the blurry moments between self-analysis and self-revelation.
The (Hypothetical) Prophets' "Person to Person" is like a diametric opposite, the pretty pealed away to reveal a gritty surface. Lyrics focus on a personal ad complete with a laundry list of "need not apply"'s: no boozers, no smokers, no neurotics, no cancers, no losers, no phonies. The love-seeker is interested in securing absolute perfection and as a result, constructed a search doomed to be a failure right from the get-go. What makes it original, wholly French, is that one gets the feeling such a set-up was purely intentional -- and not the result of some subterranean neurosis.
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