Alain Bashung’s album of his life, a new 3CD compilation, brings together the key tracks from one of the most hit-filled repertoires in French rock chanson. L'album de sa vie (Quelle vie !) begins with Gaby Oh Gaby, the spark that ignited the singer’s career at the dawn of the 80s, before retracing the journey of this multifaceted, popular and demanding artist through around forty tracks that left their mark on listeners’ memories. A final CD, devoted to the many covers that punctuated Bashung’s career, also shows the breadth of the inspiration—from Léo Ferré to Manset, from Elvis to Leonard Cohen—that nourished this unique body of work. Through this snapshot of thirty years of intense creative activity, his gift for immortal melodies (Vertiges de l'amour, Osez Joséphine, Madame rêve, La nuit je mens), his sharp musical turns, his powerful, singular voice, and his taste for nonsense with a high poetic charge, cultivated through contact with exceptional lyricists (Boris Bergman, Serge Gainsbourg, Jean Fauque...), which has now become a language in its own right. A miraculous unreleased trackBut the big surprise of this new anthology is the presence of an unreleased track, On n'a pas l'air..., dating from 1981 and unearthed and mixed forty years later by Mitch Olivier, the sound engineer from the sessions at the time. It reveals echoes of the ska of the era through a lively saxophone, a bluesy harmonica that reflects Bashung’s loyalty to his foundational influences, but the guitars and rhythm section, a few hours ahead of time, already unveil the future chapter. An essential discovery that borders on a miracle.
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