Jacques Brel (1929 - 1978)
Related: Belgian music - French music - bourgeoisie
Les Bourgeois (1962) - Jacques Brel [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
In his dramatic style, 60's French singer, Jacques Brel, offers a satyric critique of French middle class society.
Biography
Jacques Brel (April 8, 1929 – October 9, 1978) was a Belgian French-speaking author-composer, considered by many a poet as well, for the strong power of expression in his lyrics. Remembered in the anglophone world for the translations of his songs, he is also remembered in French-speaking countries as an actor and director. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Brel [Nov 2005]
Influenced by Brel: Scott Walker
The Drift (2006) - Scott Walker
[Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
[i]f you are a fan of Diamanda Galas (who is about the only person who can compare in terms of anguish and horror and pain), Lydia Lunch, later Marc Almond, or dark, slow goth music full of tortured anguish, then you stand a good chance of liking this. --[euchrid] (UK) for Amazon.co.uk
There is a 10 minute Scott Walker documentary at Youtube. Phinn on Scott.
Scott Walker is the stage name of American born singer-songwriter Noel Scott Engel. Born in January 1943 in Hamilton, Ohio, he was named after his father. Walker has long resided in England.
Walker's own original songs of this period (emerging solo work) are a late, last flowering of a dark Romanticism tinged with Surrealism and Existential angst. They are influenced by Jacques Brel and in some inchoate way, the writing of Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus and early twentieth century European thought, poetry, art and music (despite the fact that by then Existentialism was waning as a philosophical and literary fashion). Walker explored European musical roots while paradoxically expressing his own American experience and alienation. He was also inching to a new maturity as a recording artist. This would bear incredible fruit with his marvellous country recordings in the early seventies.--http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Walker_%28singer%29