We will cover other French songs, but they’ll have to go some to be as French as this ‘un…
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[7.14]
Martin Skidmore: Only the French sound like this: there’s something about the clearly enunciated chanson style of this that could be from nowhere else. I have a bad feeling that she might easily be aggravatingly quirky and too pleased with herself, but I’m suspending that suspicion on the basis of too minimal evidence, so this is currently okay and sort of cute.
[6]
Alex Wisgard: Sounds like France Gall being given the Mark Ronson treatment. Awful on paper, wonderful on headphones.
[8]
Ian Mathers: I liked “J’Traine Des Pieds” mostly for the digital twinkle underlying the song, which gave it “a starry, floaty feel it doesn’t really earn otherwise” (thanks, 2007 me!). Yes, Ruiz’s delivery was a crucial part of that song’s greatness, and it still sounds nice today, but without that kind of atmospheric backdrop she just sounds… well, like someone singing the words “elle panique” a lot, quite frankly.
[5]
Hillary Brown: Hark. An autoharp? Olivia Ruiz’s tune is almost twee as possible but not uninteresting, with her sweetly nasal Parisian vowels honking along cutely to a background of plucked and strummed strings that has enough backbeat in it to propel things along to the quickly arriving conclusion.
[7]
Martin Kavka: How lovely. An autoharp, horns, pizzicato strings, surf guitar, and handclaps. No, not all at the same time, silly. But there’s a lot of wonderful parts to this beautifully arranged song, which commands you to listen to it again and again, and to renew your awe at its accessibility and complexity. It’s also a beautiful narrative about a woman intervening on a friend’s behalf with Mr. Wrong, who is such a bad boyfriend that the friend is now afraid for many things…including her ass.
[9]
Dave Moore: A slight charmer that’s sweet, brief, then vanishes like a palate cleanser.
[7]
M. H. Lo: The magic of this track, endearingly, lies in all the moments in-between. The melody of the verses, for example, is a bit fussy and complicated, while the primary chorus is a tad too simple. But the instrumentation that conveys us from part to part is unceasingly fascinating – like how she sings “derriere,” and the horns go “blah rah blah rah blah lah BLAT!!!” in response while the plucked strings swoon along. If only that happened each time someone around me said “ass”.
[8]