Yann Pierre - Chansonneur

Yann Pierre and me, it’s an old story. I discovered him by chance of a concert of Volo. He opened for them alone, with his guitar and his mocking eye. "Le Pâté de Sirène", "La Corde", "Les Glandeurs", "Arrête Ton Char", "L'Usine Derrière Chez Moi"... So many gems that instantly hit the target and triggered hilarity, to the point of eclipsing the headline act!
From then, I can’t count the times I went back to see him play, in very unlikely places, careful about his advancement and his new compositions. I even infected many friends.

As the man is prolific, Chansonneur is his n-th self-produced album. Do you realize? n albums already! (At this stage, the more sagacious amongst you must think I wrote n while meaning to replace it later with the exact number, but didn’t find time to check it. Well you got it. Remains to close a parenthesis that has gone on too long.)

One more time, Yann took care of his eloquence, with his caustic humour, sometimes risqué. This heir to Boby Lapointe, to Georges Brassens, to Jean Yanne or Pierre Desproges catches with his gall all the current quirks of our society. Which actually makes him close to Frédéric Fromet, my previous card.
You’ll find pell-mell on his tally: environment ("CO2", "Plastique"), nationalism ("Le Blues du Connard de Souche", of which I also advise you the rock version and its funny video), commercialised flamenco (the inevitable "Le Premier Qui Fait Olé"), religion ("Dieu Est Humour", "Les Athées Pratiquants").
But he knows how to change into a storyteller too (“Y a pas besoin de paraboles pour faire un clin d'œil aux étoiles”, or "Eléonore"), attiring himself in softer and beautiful arrangements for the occasion.

After his previous album Fume Dans les Ouatères, the return to acoustic guitar, and to a style more chanson than rock, enables to emphasise his lyrics. They’re his obvious strong point. For all that, you’d be wrong not to notice this genius joker is a very skilled guitarist too, easy on the neck – including at fast tempos. You have to see him to believe it. As for me at least, I’ll go back. The old story goes on.