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.

I’m off to the gym to try to cycle another 12 miles on one of those evil bikes.

Hopefully my mind will be somewhat distracted from the grim reality of my lack of fitness by La Ruda’s new album, Odéon 1014, which I have just picked up from the Amazon MP3 store, which, happily was £2 cheaper than on iTunes.

I’ve not heard any samples from this album yet, which you can do now by using the widget to the right, but given La Ruda’s track record I’m not expecting to be disappointed.

All going well, the next post will be brief review and a translation of at least one of the songs.

Update: The stand out track for me on this album (and by some way) is track nine “1982.”

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.

Le Vilain Volatile are a fantastic French rock/ska band whose first and only album is, as far as I’m aware, available for MP3 purchase only at Xtrib.com.

How such a great band is not more widely known, I can only guess.

This song, Banal Killer is my favourite track on the album. An upbeat ska/rock track on the album but you can listen to a far gentler, more sinister, and no less excellent acoustic version on the band’s Wat.TV channel, along with three more similarly de-rocked tracks from the album.

The song starts with a verse of parental clichés before becoming a great deal more disturbing.

I stumbled across the acoustic recording while I was preparing a translation for this post and noticed the word “Houellebecq” added to the title. I don’t know what this means but it wouldn’t be out of place it it were a reference to the award-winning and controversial author Michel Houellebecq whose novels are often shocking and laced with anti-societal themes.

Placed somewhat arbitrarily at number two in my recent list of my favourite francophone albums, I was suprised that I had not yet posted a translation of a song from Kaïn’s Les Saisons S’tassent.

Pépère translates as easy, tranquill, stress-free and is also used to refer to a grandad, or an old man. The phrase “Bon Pépère” is often also used to describe an old pet of good character – just do a search on Google Images for “Bon Pépère” and you’ll see what I mean.

I have struggled so much with a decent English translation and I pretty much gave up but settled on “Good when I’m old.” even though I know it doesn’t do the job very well.

I’m not sure if the star du pop in the lyrics is a pun on being a “pop”, albeit that it would be an anglicism, but luckily it loses nothing in the translation if that was indeed the intention of the writer.

Speaking of which, I was lucky enough to find here and here the thoughts of Steve Veilleux, the songwriter on this particular song:

Bon pépère, une chanson sur quelqu’un qui veut vieillir sans avoir de remords ou de regrets, qui veut mener une vie correcte, peut-être pas glamour, mais honnête

Une chanson sur quelqu’un qui veut vieillir sans avoir de remords ou de regrets, qui veut mener une vie correcte, peut-être pas glamour, mais honnête

A song about someone who wants to grow old without remorse or regrets, who wants to lead a good life, maybe not glamorous, but honest.

Here is a translation of the cracking opening track from Soan’s debut album Tant Pis which was released at the end of November last year.

The album passed me by until a couple of months ago, otherwise it would have certainly been a contender for my list of the top ten albums of 2009.

The lyrics here are full of interesting French phrases, idioms and vocabulary. Enjoy!

P.S. I was very grateful today for a comment on the translation of Renaud’s Arrêter La Clope from Ludovic which points out a problem with the translation and also brought to my attention the significance of carrots in relation to the tobacco industry in France.

I was asked to translate this song in a comment from a previous Vulgaires Machins translation.

In the run-up to the UK election I had wanted to keep things reasonably topical, and luckily this fits well (excuse the pun), the title summing up the attitude of some of our politicians’ spending plans for the future, and the song being about the quality of information we demand, and receive, from the media.

Puits Sans Fond, “Bottomless pit” is from the excellent album Compter Les Corps.

In retaliation for our treatment of their banks, Iceland sent a cloud of volcanic ash over Britain yesterday which grounded all air traffic for the first time in our history.

Living in London and being used to hearing and seeing a new plane every couple of minutes, it feels very bizarre to be plunged back into the nineteenth century.

In recognition of this, here is a translation of Le Ciel est Gris (The Sky is Grey) by Volo. This is from the 2006 album Blancs Manteaux à Volo, although I think his latest album (En Attendant, Sep 2009) is much better.

I should mention that the correlation between the song and current events begins and ends with the title!