Double CD and Double DVD box set (DVD 1: the concert filmed at the Casino de Paris + DVD 2: Portrait fiction by Laetitia Masson + 2 x CD: original album La Superbe)
The release of an album by Benjamin Biolay is in a roundabout way a pretext for comparison with his colleagues from the new French scene. It is also an opportunity to gain a little perspective, as the musical and textual language is in many respects superior to ordinary music.
This double album La superb follows the diptych À l'origine / Trash Yéyé which saw him explore darker themes. Melancholy, at the center of his work, is of course strongly present, and the stories of thwarted love are numerous and detailed ("August 15", "Miss Catastrophe" or "You are my love" on the first part).
Unfold The superb is equivalent to listening to the soundtrack of a sentimental education, each time renewed like so many different scenarios and music. A first part rich in careful arrangements and accompaniments (saxophone and theremin are used) is followed by a second disc that is more rhythmic and binary, closing the diary of a month or a year from “August 15” to “September 15”.
The singer has not changed anything in the disillusioned style that gives him his charm, between talk-overs and strong choruses. Benjamin Biolay lives up to his ambitions with an album that in no way usurps its title: La superb is the long-awaited masterstroke from him. It goes to show that bad love stories make good works.