Chickolith: Nouvelle Vague

By Ned Hepburn on July 10th, 2009

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Here’s why I think Nouvelle Vague might totally appeal to you: beautiful French girls singing bossa nova covers of punk rock and new wave covers from the 80’s. Have I not sold you already? It’s a win-win situation.

They’ve been around for a few years, their first album was something of a sleeper hit, garnering them spots on soundtracks and commercials. Blah blah blah. I could go on for an hour, but seriously, folks: beautiful French girls singing Bauhaus and Joy Division covers? Fuck. I’m sold. Karl Lagerfeld – the head of Chanel – is a fan, and so is Robert “Sin City” Rodriguez. And so am I. And so should you be. You’re going to need a “dinner jazz” sort of album at some point in your life so this might as well be the one, am I right?

Watching them live is an entirely different experience than their albums. There’s something to be said about watching them onstage cavort about in the way that Burlesque dancers do but without any of the “heyyyyyyyyyyy I’m a Burlesque dancer! Looky-me!!!” that Burlesque performers often do. The most they do in that line of thought is maybe take off their shoes and dance around but fuck – it’s those voices. They could cover Marilyn Manson and I’d be totally OK with it.

Their 3rd album – and possibly their last seeing as 80’s nostalgia is waning unless they’re going to be heading in a 90’s direction – is coming out in the U.S sometime in the Fall but it’s out now in Europe and you can hear the whole thing on their Myspace. Dude, trust me. It’s no Slipknot or Led Zepplin, but it’s a brilliant summer “lets chill out and smoke a bowl” album. In fact, all of their albums are like that. It’s perfect mood music, especially the first album, because I’m STILL getting thank-you’s from dudes I went to college with who tell me that Nouvelle Vague’s first album is the PERFECT album to have a girl over to. Jesus – I’m sounding like a fan boy. Whatever. Fuck you. I am. They’re awesome.