After Hours

Dick Rivers & les Chats Sauvages. Tu peins ton visage

Here we have the very un-French-sounding Dick Rivers (born Hervé Forneri) with a delightful bit of "ye-ye" nonsense. Obviously, he's trying to emulate Elvis, but one thing is for sure (besides the fact that he's wearing a killer leather tux) - NEWS FLASH - he's no Elvis. Once French rock 'n' roll came into being in the mid-sixties, you had real people singing real songs, but in the early sixties, during Rivers' stint of popularity, it's just imitative and derivative. It's like watching a bunch of monkeys trying to run a major corporation. But that doesn't mean that neither French rock nor business monkeys aren't fun to watch. This is really the best the French had to offer the pop music world at the time. Good thing Serge Gainsbourg came along and invented a viable French approach when he did.