No Filler Music Podcast - Sidetrack: The Yé-yé French Pop Stylings of Juniore

Episode Date: April 28, 2019

On this week's Sidetrack we take another peak at the term ​"yé-yé​", a specific style of French pop music popularized in the 60's that continues to influence groups to this day, with its twangy surf guitar & upbeat bubblegum pop melodies. A favorite of ours that stands out in this style is a group that goes by Juniore, who have been perfecting that 60's retro French pop sound since 2013. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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And welcome to No Filler. The music podcast dedicated to sharing the often overlooked hidden gyms that fill the space between the singles on our favorite records. my name is Quentin. I've got my brother Travis with me, as always. Last week, we covered the French electronic retro synth pop duo air. And this week for our sidetrack, we're going to dive a little bit into the 60s French pop genre of yeah, yeah. I think that's how you pronounce it. Travis, any clue as to what this is?

So this is the name of a genre, like a French genre? Yeah, yeah, it's a style of pop music that kind of popped up in Europe in the early 60s. And I found a really cool, like contemporary artist that, so apparently there's a lot of bands still today that, that are heavily influenced by the sound. So the term Yeah, yeah But dude, you know what, let's get some Let's just see how it's let's just see how this is pronounced I'm just going to find one of those fucking pronunciation videos

Yeah, yeah Yeah, yeah Yeah, yeah Man, you can't say that without sounding silly Yeah Yeah Does it translate to something? Like what is the translation?

So it's derived from the English term Yeah, yeah Okay It's just, it's kind of like a tongue and cheek. Let's just call it, yeah, yeah, dude. All right. So it was popularized from, actually, I guess they found its origins. This, like, movement is what they called it, the yeah, yeah movement.

This radio program called Salute Le Copans, which means hello mates. So if this sounds familiar to, I did kind of do like a bonus side track on this style of music. after I came across this really awesome song by a yeah, yeah, artist named Jacqueline Taib. So I covered it, but it was kind of a hidden, like, bonus side track. I did it quite a few months back. Anyways, I just love this style of music. And so this was this radio program back in the, like, back in 1959 is when it first aired. And they did this program called This Weeks Sweetheart.

And they would have both male and female singers come sing songs on this program. And it was just this, it quickly became this like certain style of like what's called like bubblegum pop, you know, like really upbeat, happy sounding songs. The band that we're covering today is a band called Junio, jute, fuck. Junior, I think that's how you say that. It's a band that formed back in 2013, heavily influenced by the 60s, pop stylings, like surf guitar, retro French pop, that kind of fun stuff. I was planning on just focusing on Juniore, but I'm going to play just a little bit. It's the same song I covered a while back, but I just love this song.

Again, this is from an artist called Jacqueline Tayeb, and she was just right smack dab in the middle of that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, movement. And this song was actually, she sang it translated to English, too, she had an English version of this song. So this one's called 7 a.m. just give you a little taste of the sound. It's 7 in the morning. I've got to get up. Oh, I'm so tired. Well, let's look some music on it when get me going.

Don't know something like a king bound my... T'nish. One is my father's. The blue one is my mother's. The yellow one is my brothers. Mine must have gone with the wind. It's a mother, isn't it? So she's kind of barring from generation, obviously,

my generation by the Who. But that's not like a word for word. Well, yeah, but... The way she was stuttering was kind of a nod, a nod to the singer. Yeah, good point. And so I found this really extensive playlist on Spotify with a bunch of these 60s French pop artists. And quite a few of them do actual French versions, like, you know, covers of popular rock songs.

So these singers on this radio program were all, quote, adorable teenage girls ranging from 50s. 15 to 20 years old, singing French versions of American rock and roll songs and breathy, sweet voices, and occasionally their own compositions. So there were male singers, too, but anyways, that's kind of where this style took off was on this particular radio program. And so I looked into it to see, like, I was just curious if I could find any contemporary artists that are barring from these sounds, you know. There's quite a few, actually.

My favorite that I found was again, this band called Juniore. And our intro was a little bit of a song of theirs called Magnifique, which is actually it's a bonus track off of their latest album called Ulala, came out in 2017. So I had a hard time picking one song to cover from there because there's just a lot great, a lot of great sounds. A lot of great EPs that go all the way back to 2013. So I'm going to play a song. Well, let me, let me backtrack. So one thing that jumped out at me that I really liked about that song from Jacqueline is that really kick-ass distorted guitar, you know, like the whole time that guitar is pretty much just doing like a solo, guitar solo

throughout the whole song. I love that, that sound, you know, it's kind of like that surf rock kind of stuff, you know? Right, yeah. And this band Juniore really dives into that that kind of sound. So I'm going to play

the B-side off of their very first single that came out again in 2013. This song is called Dan's Le Noir. Yeah, man, that was a killer track, dude. Killer.

You remember when I was on that psych rock garage band kick Yeah. And you were kind of giving him some grief. Some of the artists that I play, like, man, that's just too much on the nose, like, barring from that son. Sure. You want to talk about, like, that could have easily been recorded in the 60s, you know, everything about that. Yeah.

I mean, I guess there's, I mean, that's the thing. Like, with some of those psych rock bands, you know, there's, like, the right way to do it. And then there's, like, the, like I was saying, the more like. it just sounds like you're doing an impersonation of a band from that era versus like tweaking it a little bit and putting your own spin on it. I don't know enough about the yeah yeah sound from the 60s to know if they're... Well, you know, it's not, you know, yeah, this is a contemporary band, you know. It's just, you know, with heavy influence on that style. It doesn't matter, man.

That was such a great track. Yeah, yeah. there's a someone let's see where is it so there's an online publication called the fader

and they this article was written about Juniore and they said the music sounds like

the 1966 Batmobile you know from the from the from the Kiche what's the word Kitchie yeah The surf guitar stuff.

But like that specific Batman TV series that was Oh yeah. Like supposed to be just like the comic book like really like a lots of comic relief and all that. Yeah, it kind of takes you back to that. I mean, yeah, it just screams like like that 60s five. The surf twangie surf guitar and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. Yeah.

But I mean, what I like about that song is that it had kind of a dark feel to it. too, you know. Yes. So I want to play another song because, I mean, you know, we're moving right along here. I want to play a little bit of another one from their latest album. So that, again, that one was 2013. Here is a song from their latest album called U-L-L-L-A, which came on in 2017. This song is called, and, God, how do you even say Antoine, Antoine, A-N-T-O-I-N-E? Dude, I like how you gave yourself such a hard time for not being able to pronounce you words in different languages, man. It's okay to feel like an uncultured swine. Yeah, because everybody's supposed to spring French fluently.

Yep. All right, this one's called Antoine. Yeah, I like that Oregon solo at the end. Yeah, it's great. And group is led by the main singer's songwriter. Her name's Anna Jean. That really cool album art, it's all her art. Nice.

Yeah. Good stuff, man. Good stuff. So is the whole album like that? Oh, yeah. Yeah, dude. Is there a good mix of, you know, that was a little bit more on a lighter, not as complicated side? Yeah.

Because I mean, what I loved about that first one that you played us, what a great, like, hook, you know. Oh, yeah. That, you know, everything about that song, that baseline and everything was just fucking spot on. Yeah, and I'm going to fade us out with the last track on Ulala, and you'll hear a little bit, a whole other, you know, it's a little bit darker again, which is what I like. Yeah. Yeah. Good stuff. I think we can just go ahead and wrap it up, dude.

What do you say? Yeah, sounds good to me, man. Cool. So next week We're covering some strokes, dude Yeah, man Yeah, we gotta do We gotta do them justice

So have we decided Are we gonna do Is this it? Are we gonna do Room on Fire? We're doing Is This It? We gotta do Is This It? Because we're gonna cover both of them, man.

You know it. That's a good call. Yeah, let's do their let's do as this is it. Their debut full length. Yeah, dude, I can't wait. Yeah, I'm excited. So, until then, as always,

hop into our website. There you can find a lot more information on each episode. We'll have show notes for each episode, including the sidetracks. You can dive a little bit deeper. We'll always put links to articles from, you know, all the information that we pulled for each episode, for each album, for each article.

And yeah, again, thanks as always for listening. Stream us on SoundCloud. We're going to fade us out again with another song from Juniore's 2017 album, Uh, this song is An Ancombo. This song is Encavali. And thanks again for listening. My name is Gwen. My name is Travis.

Take care.