Yesterday I pointed you in the direction of the new release from Vulgaires Machins, an album of eleven acoustic songs, available for the donation of your choice from their website.

I’ve listened to the album half a dozen times since downloading it and I love it – I don’t need to review it for you – download a copy and check it out for yourself.

Here is a translation of “A”, originally released on the 2006 album “Aimer Le Mal” which you can sample using the Amazon widget on the right.

I don’t know what “cady” means – the best I can discover is that it is a make of motorbike. If you know, please share.

You could do worse things right now than pay a visit to the Boutique area of the Vulgaires Machins website.

Today the band released an eleven-track acoustic album which they are allowing you to download for whatever price you would like to pay.

This includes the ability to download for free in exchange for your email address.

I can’t provide a review yet or any translations as I have only this minute finished downloading it myself and am currently listening to the second track.

Suffice it to say that Vulgaires Machins are one of my favourite francophone rock bands and I highly recommend that you get a copy of this album.

To celebrate the fantastic new album from Mademoiselle K, here is another translation from it.

Having listened to this album fairly solidly for the last few days, I think it’s my favourite release since Babylon Circus’s La Belle Étoile.

The song translated here is the title track Jouer Dehors, the vampiric video for which can be viewed here.

I’m a lot happier with this translation than the last one, because these lyrics make a lot more sense.

A week late, I’d forgotten about the release of Mademoiselle K’s latest album, Jouer Dehors (Playing Outside), on January 14th.

I picked it up today from the Amazon MP3 store, and I can tell you that it’s a real good’un. A bit less rocky and a bit less punky than the previous two albums, a bit cleaner, a bit more melodic, and altogether very enjoyable from the very first listen.

Some standout tracks for me, are “La Corde” – the build up in the chorus is so satisfying (as it is with the final track “À L’infini”), “Solidaires”, and the title track, the video for which you can watch the video for the title track at this link.

While I absolutely loved the first few tracks on Ça Me Vexe (some of the best French rock I’ve heard), I was never totally grabbed by Jamais La Paix, and thought the next album might be quite empty. I was wrong. The album sounds crisp, well produced and stays solid until the very end. Highly recommended.

So, en deux temps, trois mouvements, I thought I would put up a translation of the opening track, Aisément.

I’ll be honest (I’m a very honest man), I’m not overly pleased with this translation, I not actually sure what she’s going on about.

Feel free to let me know where I’ve screwed up.

The UK general election was called on Tuesday and we’ll soon be trundling off to the polling booths to decide how many of our current suits we want to swap for new ones.

Now, this song choice is not supposed to indicate in any way my political preference (not much), suffice to say that it feels quite pertinent.

Ok, so the comparisons break down on closer inspection, it feels a bit harsh to bring his mother into it, but we’ll find out on the first Thursday in May if this is broadly how the nation feels about our Great Leader Gordon Brown.

Il Faut Que Tu T’en Ailles (You really have to go) is the opening song on the 2005 album Inoxydable. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a big fan of Quebec’s Marie Mai – I’m not aware of any female artists in the UK producing this quality of pop rock.

As promised, today’s post is a translation from La Belle Étoile.

Marions-Nous Au Soleil (Let’s Get Married In The Sun), features Karina Zeviani and is the second track on La Belle Étoile which was the subject of the yesterday’s post.

A few pieces of interesting vocabulary to look at. I struggled to translate “ma caille” which means literally “my quail”. This is an affectionate term for a girlfriend and I searched my brainbox for English birdy equivalents but failed to find anything.

A couple of weeks ago I bought Diam’s latest album S.O.S., released on November 13th this year.

I have only one other Diam’s album, the 2006 Dans ma bulle and essentially S.O.S. is pretty much more of the same, that’s to say, very solid hip hop with the occasional track that stands out.

In fairness, I think there are a few more stand out songs on this album than on Dans ma Bulle and I think Coeur De Bombe is one of those tracks.

Interestingly it is the only track that I put in my “favourite french songs” playlist while I was listening to the album for the first time although I certainly don’t think it is the strongest track on the album.

In any case, it’s the song I am going to translate in this post!

There is a usage of the verb tomber “to fall” which means “to bump into”, as in Je suis tombé sur mon ami. I’ve left the translation of tombé sur une bombe in the chorus as “fell on a bomb” as I think the image is preferable to any other translation.

I recently heard a song by Isabelle Boulay on a French radio station. I was suprised how grabbed I was by her voice given that her music is not generally of the genre that immediately catches my attention.

As I do in these circumstances, I went in search of the samples that accompany MP3 downloads these days and found the album Nos Lendemains (Our tomorrows) in the UK iTunes store.

I was not suprised to find that her previous album De retour à la source was nominated for the Canadian Juno Award for francophone album of the year in 2008 which was eventually won by Daniel Bélanger who was one of the earliest singers I translated on this site.

I suspect that I will soon return to the world of distorted guitars, male vocals and ska, but first here is a translation of a song from Nos Lendemains called Ton Histoire (Your story).

I’ve done something with this translation that I’ve not attempted before.

Whenever I translate on this blog I concentrate first and foremost on conveying the meaning of the original lyrics trying to keep as much as possible the feeling of a song. However, this is the first translation where I have consciously attempted to make the translation poetic, so that it could indeed by sung over the same tune.

For example, here is the first verse…

…here is how I translated it originally…

…and here is my attempt at adding a little flavour…

As you can see I am clearly in no danger of becoming the next Poet Laureate.

When a professional translates a song for the very purpose of being recorded in a new language, he or she will more often than not have to restructure, rewrite, or juggle large chunks of the song in order to create a good song in the new language. As you can see I’ve not done that here.

Once upon a time I translated a tremendously famous song by Charles Aznavour called Hier Encore. I gave the original French, my translation and provided the YouTube video of the actual English recording of the song. You can clearly see the art of the professional translator in that post.

With this translation of Ton Histoire I have, as always, provided certain vocabulary and expressions prior to the lyrics. You can therefore check out for yourself where I may have taken a few liberties with the flavour of words.

I’m not sure how well it worked but it’s an experiment that I enjoyed and may try again in the future. Suggestions welcome!

I can’t tell you how much this guy reminds me of myself about twenty years ago. He’s even using the same Gibson guitar I was grinding at the time and would’ve used to record almost exactly that video had YouTube been around in 1989. Thankfully it was not.

The song he is attacking is the song I’m going to translate today.

Marie Mai first gained fame as one of the finalists of Star Académie, a Québécois version of those shows such as X-Factor, Pop Idol, etc… that we have all come to know and . A talented singer who would be unlikely to make the cut on an English version as we seem to prefer to pick people that we can use for headline-fodder rather than finding real singers.

Marie-Mai’s latest album, Version 3.0 (a gag first pulled by Garbage in 1998 with their second album Version 2.0) was released at the end of September. I downloaded it from Amazon today and listened to it for the first time.

Her style is very much in the same arena as that of Avril Lavigne and although I’m not sure if I should admit it, I have to say that I do kind of enjoy this sort of rocky pop when it’s done well. Albeit in small doses.

The 2007 album Dangereuse Attraction opened with a very strong track called Mentir. As you may already know I keep a play list of songs to help me make it through my gym sessions and Mentir is a song that has been in that list for a while.

Version 3.0 does not start as well as Dangereuse Attraction, although the first two tracks are still pretty good. However track three C’est Moi descends into a realm of pop music with which I’m not really very comfortable – Cher-style voice screwery and other electro-effects – nothing horrific but enough to turn me off. Track four Garde Tes Larmes “Keep your tears” starts off in much the same vein although quickly improves with a chorus that is amongst the best on the album.

Next up is what I consider to be the strongest song on the album Secrets. It then all cruises along until Plaisirs Amers where we once again have to listen to voice-fiddling but this is balanced out with hints of some heavier guitar riffs which come excitingly close to leaning towards the metal that I often go into dark corners to listen to.

Rebâtir Notre Histoire is probably the weakest song. It starts pretty badly then tries to improve but then gives up.

The album finishes with the English language song Do You – half rock, half dance – decent enough but essentially just more of the same. This is, for me, the biggest problem with the album. Although perfectly solid with a very fine singer and some decent tracks, everything’s a little samey whereas I felt that Dangereuse Attraction had far more variety and interest.

For some reason I had written this album off in my mind as being far too cheesy and a bit too “eighties”. Wandering through my iTunes collection today trying to avoid work, it caught my eye and I kicked it off. Currently playing in the background, this album from 1990 is way better than I remember it being. Or maybe it’s just my hangover talking.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying it’s rocking me sideways, but I certainly thought it was worth bringing to your attention. Which is, after all, what I’d like to think I’m here for.

Anyway – there you go – something to check out.