Bashung made rock music which worked in the French language, succeeding where many predecessors and contemporaries were content to offer pale imitations of Anglo-Saxon artists. He often did so while employing the best musicians from the UK and the US – for instance, he worked with the Roxy Music guitarist Phil Manzanera and Wire's Colin Newman on Novice (1989), Adrian Utley of Portishead on Fantaisie Militaire (1998), and the Tom Waits collaborator Marc Ribot on Chatterton (1994), L'Imprudence (2002), and Bleu Pétrole (2008), the last of his 13 studio albums. In doing so, Bashung followed in the footsteps of Serge Gainsbourg, who often came to London and who used seasoned British artists to record Histoire de Melody Nelson (1971). Gainsbourg and Bashung teamed up for the latter's critically-acclaimed "cold wave" album, Play Blessures, in 1982.

Somewhere between Gainsbourg, Scott Walker and Gene Vincent, Alain Bashung, who has died aged 61, was a French popstar with millions of fans.
He worked a rare intelligence and profound poetry into his songwriting, over the years developing a style of phrasing which always put expressiveness first. Less ruled by the idea of absolute authorship than Gainsbourg, Bashung knew, throughout his career, how to find alter egos to expand his universe.

Oh, the 80's, how I miss 'em!!!
Here is one of the masterpieces of Pop from the 1980's, orchestrated by none other than Mr. Leo himself, Roland Orzabal, and a crew of top rate musicians, among them the incredible Oletta Adams.
Reportedly costing about 1 million GBP to make at the time, it is one of the few albums that actually sounds like a million bucks!!!!
Also featuring the dubious honor of having up to five 24 track machines synched together to get 100+ separate tracks (let's not even talk about the patch bay!!!), the production here is beyond stellar.
Mixed by David Bascombe in "SuperBascombevision" (or something like that) , there are also mixes by Bob Clearmountain("Woman In chains") that define "State of the Art Recording".
When I got his LP , it was in NM visually, but it was the clickiest thing ever. Fortunately, ClickRepair came to the rescue.
The "sheen" that permeates this LP is nowhere to be found on any CD version, so , if you TRULY want to listen to this album for the FIRST TIME EVER, as it was supposed to have sounded originally, download and listen to this sonic marvel!

Whether he's collaborating with longtime lyricist Bernie Taupin or other songwriters, Elton John has written and performed some of the most cherished love songs in the pop-music canon. This album includes top charters; "Sorry Seems to be the Hardest Word" reached #1 in Adult Contemporary chart 1976, "Little Jeannie" reached #1 in 1980, "Blue Eyes" reached #1 in 1982.