GiedRé: 21st century dadaist?

Doesn't she look a lovely cute singer? So wholesome she seems on the cover of Ma PReMièRe CoMPiL' (she likes to play randomly with upper and lower cases). In photos, we can see her adorned in flowers, surrounded by cuddly toys, as if she's about to burst into syrupy song. Far from it: note the 'PARENTAL ADVISORY EXPLICIT CONTENT' towards the top right, and the booklet containing the words of her songs show her hands describing what she told an interviewer is a symbol for 'trou du cul'. And what of that brown pile in front of her? There's more here than initially meets the eye. On On n'est pas couché (ONPC)', a late Saturday night discussion program, she appeared much like this, only along with flowers attached to her hair, there was also a tampon. Aymeric Caron described her songs as straight out of secondary school: GiedRé immediately responded that he is a victim of social codes. Natacha Polony, though, saw something of a contemporary convention-busting dadaist in her and mentioned her 'fausse naïveté'. The show host Laurent Ruquier asked her if she saw herself singing scatological songs for years, and she drew a number of laughs when she asked if he meant when she reaches maturity.

Oh, yes, those songs. There are far more here than when she appeared on ONPC, and there are more instruments now than a simple acoustic guitar, but the subjects haven't changed. There's 'On fait tous caca' (lit. 'We All Poo'), 'Ode à la contraception' (which doesn't need translating), 'Pisser debout' (in which she wishes she were a man, although she sings that her mother says that she has both sexes in her, as she swears like a guy). And she seems to have really gone out of her way to discover deviant sexual habits: although 'Les croûtons' doesn't mention the word croûtenard – how many French people would understand the meaning? – it's nevertheless about one, who has a wife, but chokes on the urine-soaked bread in his rush to get home.*

GiedRé has sold 20,000 records: OK, her albums can be found in the 'independent' music section, but it's still quite a number of sales for records that surely only appeal to the French-speaking market. Even if her songs were translated, I don't think England would welcome her: they'd see her as too extreme. But maybe Ruquier is right: how long before her audience tires, and how long before she runs out of subjects to sing about? (All the same, she is very unusual, very clever, and not without brilliance.)

* The 'glory days' of the smelly, green, male-only vespasiennnes, named after the Roman emperor Vespasien – who introduced a urine tax on the then highly valuable commodity for its dyeing and bleaching properties – have long gone, replaced in favour of the self-cleaning sanisettes.