Volatil (Zazie)
For more than 30 years, it has been impossible for Zazie not to serve as an echo chamber for a world that does not merely surround her, but constricts her, suffocates her. And her most beautiful way of catching her breath has always been to stand tall, as a woman and an artist, and to give voice to her words, so true and human, much like the birds on her new album of the same name. What resonates then is poetry, intimate or multifaceted, often dark and caustic, but always free, just like its author.
The album opens with “Ordonnance,” a track reminiscent of Daran’s “Rêvé de rien”, a diagnosis of a sick society, one in which, for decades, we’ve been content to treat the symptoms without addressing the root causes. And this track can serve as a guiding thread for the listener through Zazie’s twelfth album, as she explores, in turn, pretense, contradictions, and sacrifices, societal and collective, of course, but essentially intimate and personal, since that is where everything plays out, in each person’s actions, the famous butterfly effect: “It’s inside you, there in the dark, that I seek the echo,” she sings in “La même histoire.”
Zazie reflects on this world that has abandoned humanity, on its digital doppelgänger, which now often takes precedence over reality through mimetic AI (“Zazie.A”), to its detachment from reality (do as I say, not as I do), as in “La même histoire,” where she dismantles the game of appearances in politics and careerism, far removed from the real concerns of voters. While this single from the album earned the artist harsh criticism on social media, she was accused of appropriating the discourse of poor people as seen from Parisian upscale neighborhoods, listeners won’t be fooled: Zazie’s words have always been honest. They reflect her incredible ability to dissect reality, to understand its mechanisms, both the most vile and the most magical, in personal and social relationships, from hate to love. Among these moments captured in the thick of life are those flashes of memory, more than mere lucidity, thanks to the music, for this “mom” who is losing her grip; a truly beautiful song, full of tenderness, that speaks to us just as much as “Danser le Parkinson” by Alice on the Roof.
But make no mistake: Zazie isn’t “Naïve”, she hasn’t been for a long time, but she believes that the heart doesn’t lie. It is to this primal, human beat that she has been returning for several albums now, a beat she seeks to free from its numbness, to liberate the spirit from its desolation (“As long as the heart beats, love does not die.”). She also turns to language, without, of course, relegating music to the background, but by making it a movement, a substance, a dynamic that carries meaning. She draws on both the piano and danceable electronic music and, as on “Peu importe,” blends apparent nonchalance with caustic lyrics, highlighting the true importance of unimportant things, because it is in these small sacrifices that contradictions, ruptures, the fractures, the ones that make us hate rather than love the other person, whom we ultimately no longer know. Zazie shares with a few others (Goldman, Cabrel, Coline Rio, notably) a knack for choosing just the right word, however simple it may sometimes be, so as not to betray her own feelings and to make herself heard by everyone; and when she uses proverbial expressions, it’s to better capture their irony (“Il n’y a plus de saison”) and invite us to return to reality, to climate change, to everyday life. It’s not about preaching, but about asking: How long are we going to accept this without saying a word?
Just like the cover of this new album, it’s a somber yet feisty Zazie who returns to us, one who embraces her sixties and stirs our desire for change as if we, too, were still twenty years old, just like all those who are speaking out loudly today because they refuse to give up on choosing their own path, their own way of living and thinking. And let’s be clear: she has nothing to do with well-trodden paths, but rather with a wild desire to dream, to sing, to dance, and to allow herself to write, carefree, the next chapter, against all the naysayers!
Comments