If
Serge Gainsbourg
was the
Leonard Cohen
of French
pop
music with his nicotine rasp and poetic obsession with sex,
Jacques Dutronc
was the Gallic
Bob Dylan
, though rather than struggle through an earnest early period singing protest songs,
Dutronc
opted to begin with the relative equivalent of
Bringing It All Back Home
.
's early hits were rough but clever exercises in European
garage rock
, with
and his band laying out a simple, tough vamp as he sneered his witty, pointed lyrics about a life lived amidst the chaos of the '60s with all the sweet venom he could muster.
became a major star in Europe, both as a musician and an actor, and he developed a potent cult following in England, but he never had a proper hit either in the United States or the U.K., doubtless because he wrote and sang exclusively in French. Forty-three years after his first hit in France, the British
RPM
label has compiled
Et Moi et Moi et Moi: Jacques Dutronc 1966-1969
, a sampler that focuses on his formative years as a French
star. Sadly,
hasn't bothered to include a translation of
's lyrics, so many British and American listeners won't know exactly what he's singing about (even though
Kieron Tyler
's liner notes discuss the themes of his major hits), but the insouciant flavor of his music is clear on nearly every track. And like
's role models
and
Ray Davies
, he could write melodies strong enough to work even without their excellent lyrics, and his band had more than enough energy to make them fly (and the imagination to move with the musical times as
psychedelia
hard rock
entered the picture at the end of the decade).
Et Moi et Moi et Moi
is a splendid introduction to an artist who remains little known in English speaking territories, and the best stuff here makes clear those who parlez anglais have been missing something worthwhile. ~ Mark Deming