Jarvis Cocker preps French pop covers album, a companion to Wes Anderson's 'The French Dispatch'

If you’ve watched the trailer for Wes Anderson‘s new movie, The French Dispatch, you may be aware that Jarvis Cocker soundtracks it with a cover of “Aline,” a 1966 single by French artist Christophe. It turns out Jarvis has a lot more where that came from, and he’ll release an entire album of French pop covers, titled Chansons D’Ennui, that’s a companion piece to Anderson’s film. The album and the film will both be out October 22.

The album is actually credited to an artist named Tip-Top, as Jarvis explains: “I am glad to finally be able to tell you about this project. The new Wes Anderson movie ‘The French Dispatch’ features a fictional French pop star called Tip Top. JARV IS… were asked to record a version of “Aline” (originally a hit in the 60s for non-fictional French pop star Christophe) under the guise of Tip Top. You may have heard it in the trailer for the film. One thing led to another & now there is a whole Tip Top album ‘Les Chansons d’Ennui’…Having grown up with a deep love of French pop this was a dream come true for me: I get to sing songs made famous by artists such as Gainsbourg, Brigitte Fontaine, Françoise Hardy, Jacques Dutronc – plus duet on “Paroles,Paroles” with Laetitia Sadier. Après moi, la déluge.

In addition to “Aline,” the album has Jarvis covering classics like Serge Gainsbourg‘s “Requiem Pour Un Con,” Brigitte Bardot‘s “Contact,” Jacques Dutronc‘s “Les Gens Sont Fous, Les Temps Sont Flous,” Françoise Hardy‘s “Mon Ami La Rose,” Dalida‘s “Dans Ma Chambre,” and more. You preorder the album on vinyl in the BV shop and check out the full tracklist below.

The first single from the album is “Aline,” and we talked to Jarvis about it last year. “The French Dispatch, it’s like a fictional magazine,” Jarvis said, “something a bit like The New Yorker or The Paris Review or something like that. And the idea is that this film tells the story of the magazine and also focuses on some kind of famous stories that were featured in the magazine over its history. And one of those stories, the one that the song is involved in, is kind of set around the time of the Paris ’68 when there were those student riots and stuff like that. So the song, “Aline,” was a hit back in the 60s for this French singer called Christophe, and Wes has always liked that song, and he just asked if I would consider doing a version of it. So we did it.”

Jarvis says the whole JARV IS… band plays on it, with orchestration added at London’s AIR Studios. “Wes, I think the way that he makes films is almost like making music. He really maps out… he will kind of edit to a tempo and the way he kind of places dialogue because there’s always a lot of voiceover and stuff like that, he really constructs scenes in quite a musical way, and he was very involved in how that song turned out as well.”

Listen to Jarvis’ cover of “Aline” as well as Christophe’s version and watch The French Dispatch trailer, below.

JARV IS… released the terrific Beyond the Pale last year, and a remix album is due out at some point too.

TRACKLIST:
01 “Dans Ma Chambre” (Dalida)
02 “Contact” (Brigitte Bardot)
02 “La Tendresse” (Marie LaFôret)
04 “Amour, Je Te Cherche” (Nino Ferrer & Radiah)
05 “Les Gens Sont Fous, Les Temps Sont Flous” (Jacques Dutronc)
06 “Il Pleut Sur La Gare” (Brigitte Fontaine & Areski Belkacem)
07 “Paroles, Paroles” (Dalida & Alain Delon) ft Laetitia Sadier
08 “Requiem Pour Un Con” (Serge Gainsbourg)
09 “Mon Ami La Rose” (Françoise Hardy)
10 “Mao Mao” (Claude Channes)
11 “Elle Et Moi” (Max Berlin)
12 “Aline” (Christophe)