Gauvain Sers's Les Oubliés (2018)

Gauvin Sers's second album, Les Oubliés, lives up to the expectations suggested in his first album Pourvu. Unusually (for an album or book, etc, surely?) Sers introduces this with a kind of explanation, saying how a second album is notoriously difficult: if he reproduces the same as the first people will just say he's going round in circles, if he branches out into something different they'll say he's lost his way, and so on? So how does this fare?

There's a similar concern with lists: the conditions and/or objects in 'Pourvu' and 'Dans mes poches' in the last album give way to the number of past treasures stored in 'La Boîte à chaussures', and his drawer in 'Le Tiroir' includes a photo booth picture that recalls the many Photomaton moments in the film Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain referenced in the first album, which also played a part of course in the director Jean-Pierre Jeunet making clips of Sers's songs.

And that old photo from the machine is of his drunk mates posing together. Friendship is high on the list of importance in this album, as in 'L'Épaule d'un copain', where a mate's shoulder is of primary concern. However, Sers (while singing in the first person) is intending to be understood in the third person in 'Changement de programme' when he unkindly mentions his 'p'tite femme' whom he ignores one evening: originally intending a drink or two with his male friends to last a short time, the session lasts well into the early morning, and the narrator knows that this is far from the final time, no matter what he says. In fact this sounds like a regular (or potential) drunkard speaking.

This macho swagger is far removed from the sensual thrust of 'Ton jean bleu' or (far more) from 'Excuse moi mon amour', where he empathises with his partner, shows strong contempt for the sexist world in which she lives, in which a young woman has to show every care about how she dresses in a world full of male vultures.

As in the album Pourvu, there isn't just one track where Sers uses the first person for a third person voice: there's also 'Tu sais mon grand' where he imagines the voice of his grandfather, or the voice of a student prostituting herself in order to survive financially in 'L'Étudiante'. Even in his duo with the 85-year-old Anne Sylvestre, 'Y'a pas de retraite pour les artistes', he's singing in her voice, as if he were her.

Overwhelmingly, I've of course saved the most important bit to the end. This album is called Les Oubliés, which of course isn't a reference to Sers's beloved cinema (Buñuel's Los Olvidados), but to the closure of village schools: there are several clips of Sers's work at a primary school in Ponthoile (Somme), and several photos from the school are in the CD booklet. Perhaps this is an indication (as 'Hénin-Beaumont' and 'Mon fils est parti au jihad' suggested in Pourvu) that Gauvain Sers's voice should speak of social issues or evils. Certainly a new track (not found on either album): 'Y'a plus de saisons', which concerns global warming, might indicate this. I wish him a long and successful future.

Album: Gauvain Sers's Pourvu (2017)

Pourvu is the title of Gauvain Sers's first album, released in late 2017 and commented on on On n'est pas couché. Christine Angot hated it because it seemed to be pure Renaud, and as for the track 'Mon fils est parti au Djhiad'... Yann Moix was kinder and said that after Gauvain Sers had shrugged off the obviously strong influence of Renaud then he'd find his own voice: after all, what do you expect at the age of 28? Laurent Ruquier argued that Renaud was influenced by Brassens, etc, everyone is influenced by someone, but anyway the public had found Sers very appealing.

And there we have it. Admittedly Sers looks more than a little like the younger Renaud in his casquette, sounds a little like him, is obviously influenced by him, uses (on this album) slang like Renaud uses, and even stood as first act before Renaud on tour, but.

It is clear to me that neither Christine Angot nor Yann Moix took this album seriously, didn't examine it properly. 'Mon fils est parti au Djhiad' is in fact one of Sers's stronger tracks, one of those which distinguish him from Renaud, although not particularly because of the content, but because of the voice. Gauvain Sers isn't (and certainly in a first album can't be expected to be) as daring as Randy Newman using the first person but expressing ideas that are contrary to his, but Sers does speak in 'foreign' voices: in 'Mon fils...' he takes on the voice of a woman whose son's been radicalised and left for Syria; in 'Hénin-Beaumont' he's a postman sick of his town voting for a Front National mayor and getting out; in 'Sur mon tracteur' he's an agricultural worker carrying on the family tradition; in 'Un clodo sur la ligne' he's a tramp; and (with Clio) in 'Le Rameau' he's the statue of Marianne in Paris, holding the olive branch. Renaud has no place in any of these songs.

There's definitely a wink to Renaud in 'Dans la bagnole de mon père' when he says of the old cassettes 'Société, tu les auras pas', recalling Renaud's statement that society wouldn't suck him in in the same way as it had Antoine and Dylan, but much of this is pure Gauvin Sers with his own way of singing: I particularly liked the reference to the 'jeu des plaques' in 'Le Bagnole de mon père', where the children discover the départements of cars from the last two numbers on the number plate. A sheer joy to listen to. Almost.

There is a bum track, and Jesus what a bummer: 'Le Poulet du dimanche'. Sorry, Gauvain Sers, but this is 2019, and by no means everyone appreciates chicken on Sunday! Especially vegetarians. Your songs speak of the love of different people, your hatred for fascists, of empathy for the downtrodden, the disinherited, but not of the love of animals, who you seem to treat as objects to be enjoyed to eat. There, as was obliquely suggested on ONPC, you have a lot to learn! Don't alienate your demographic.