Michel Sardou

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Michel Sardou
Michel Sardou 2014.jpg
Background information
Birth nameMichel Charles Sardou
Born (1947-01-26) 26 January 1947 (age 77)
Paris, France
Genres French popular music
Occupation(s)Singer, songwriter, actor
Years active1965–present
Labels Barclay, Tréma, Universal
Website michelsardou.net

Michel Charles Sardou (French pronunciation: [miʃɛlʃaʁlsaʁdu] ; born 26 January 1947) is a French singer and occasional actor.

Contents

He is known not only for his love songs ("La maladie d'amour", "Je vais t'aimer"), but also for songs dealing with various social and political issues, such as the rights of women in Islamic countries ("Musulmanes"), clerical celibacy ("Le curé"), colonialism ("Le temps des colonies", "Ils ont le pétrole mais c'est tout") or the death penalty ("Je suis pour"). Another sometimes controversial theme found in some of his songs ("Les Ricains" and "Monsieur le Président de France" for example) is his respect and support for the culture and foreign policies of the United States of America. He has been accused of being a racist due to his 1976 song "Le temps des colonies", in which a former colonial soldier proudly tells his memories of colonialism, but Sardou has always claimed the song was sarcastic. [1] His 1981 single "Les lacs du Connemara" was an international hit (especially in the Netherlands). A number of his hit songs were written in collaboration with Jacques Revaux and Pierre Delanoë, a few others (most notably "En chantant") with Italian singer Toto Cutugno.

Sardou sold out eighteen consecutive dates at Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy in 2001, while his 2004 album Du plaisir went straight to the number one spot on the French album charts. With a recording career of fifty years, Sardou has released 25 studio albums, 18 live albums and has recorded more than 350 songs (chiefly in French but also in Spanish, Italian and even English) and has sold more than 100 million records. Currently he is considered one of the most popular artists in the Francophone world and one of the most lucrative, both in sales and in his shows.

Biography

Childhood

Michel Sardou was born on 26 January 1947 in Paris. [2] His father, Fernand Sardou, was a singer and an actor while his mother, Jackie Sardou was an actress. [2] His paternal grandfather, Valentin Sardou, was a comedian in Marseille, while his grandmother was a singer.

Sardou left school at 16. [3]

Career

The early stages (1965–1970)

Sardou began working as a waiter in his father's cabaret in Montmartre. [2] He eventually met Michel Fugain and auditioned for Eddie Barclay. In 1965, Sardou began his recording career with "Le madras", co-written with Michel Fugain and Patrice Laffont. [2]

In 1967, his career really picked up, thanks to censorship: [4] while France left NATO's integrated military command and the Vietnam War was causing anti-American sentiment in France, Sardou released "Les Ricains" (The Yanks), a song which stated the debt of gratitude towards the US for the liberation of France. [2] Charles de Gaulle did not like the song and he advised against its broadcast on state radio and television. This gave the singer a new notoriety, and the song let him lay the foundations for his future artistic style. However, from 1967 to 1970, he still found it difficult to have big hits.

In view of the mitigated success of his singles, in 1969, Eddie Barclay decided to terminate his contract, estimating that Sardou was not cut out to be a singer. So, he founded the record label Tréma [5] (which stands for Talar Revaux Éditions Musicales Associées), which would produce his records, with his friends Jacques Revaux (who will become his most loyal composer) and Régis Talar, a French record producer.

Success and controversies (1970–1980)

He really met true success in 1970, when he released his first studio album, J'habite en France. [2] Three songs extracted from this work became hits : "J'habite en France" ("I live in France"), "Et mourir de plaisir" ("To die of pleasure") but mainly "Les bals populaires" ("Popular Dances"), [4] which reached the top of the French chart.

From this album, the hits would be uninterrupted throughout the 1970s. The songs "Le rire du sergent" ("The Sergeant's Laugh") (1971), "Le surveillant général" ("The Superintendent") (1972) found favour with the public. But his success was sealed in 1973 with the album La maladie d'amour. Its title track "La maladie d'amour" ("The Disease of Love"), "Les vieux mariés" (which translates as "The old married couple", but adapted in English under the title "It's not too late to start again") and "Les villes de solitude" ("The Cities of loneliness") would eventually become great successes. However, this last song triggered a controversy as Sardou takes the role of a man who, tired of his monotonous daily routine, drunkenly expresses his brutal fantasies (of robbing a bank and raping women), but never acts on them. The feminist organisation MLF objected.

The controversies reached their peak in 1976, with the album La vieille (The Old Woman). The first single from it, "Le France" ("SS France"), released in November 1975, was a message of indignation addressed to the President of France Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, who had just sold the ocean liner SS France. The controversial song was welcomed by the trade unions and the Communist Party even though Sardou was seen, because of several other songs, as an archetypal reactionary singer. Even after the album was a real triumph (more than a million copies sold), other extracts, like "J'accuse" ("I charge men of...") or "Le temps des colonies" ("The Days of Empire") are about a singer who defends old conservative values. He was even accused of being a racist and an apologist for colonialism, but he has always insisted that the song is written in character rather than being an expression of his own views. The song "Je suis pour..." ("I am in favour of ...") puts Sardou in the role of a man in favour of the death penalty because his own son has been killed. In the wake of this, and other political positions expressed by him, Anti-Sardou campaigns were started; their demonstrations regularly disrupted the singer's tours, although other left-wingers felt that Sardou was entitled to his freedom of speech. [6]

The next year, in 1977, Sardou moved away from politics. His next album, La java de Broadway, contained famous songs, such as "La java de Broadway" ("The Java of Broadway"), "Dix ans plus tôt" ("Ten years earlier") and a revival of the Claude François hit "Comme d'habitude" (the tune of which is best known to English-speaking audiences as "My Way"). The album was a huge success, exactly like the next Je vole (1978), which gave him one of his biggest hits, "En chantant" ("Singing"), written together with the Italian singer Toto Cutugno.

A legend in motion (1981–2001)

Sardou in 1998 B98cut.jpg
Sardou in 1998

The 1980s began under good omens for the singer, with the album Les lacs du Connemara from which came two songs considered important to the entire canon of French popular music: "Les lacs du Connemara" ("The Lakes of Connemara") and "Être une femme" ("Being a woman").

Throughout the decade, Sardou had a lot of success : "Afrique adieu" ("Farewell, Africa") in 1982, "Il était là" ("He was here") in 1982, "Rouge" ("Red") in 1984, "Chanteur de jazz" ("Jazz Singer") in 1985, "La même eau qui coule" ("The same water flowing") in 1988... [ citation needed ] because his sales did not slow down, whereas a lot of his contemporaries had been forgotten during the disco boom.

However he didn't shy away from controversial songs, and even had success with several of them : "Vladimir Ilitch", in 1983, which both pays tribute to the ideas of Lenin and denounces the drift of the Soviet Union away from them; "Les deux écoles" ("The Two Schools"), in 1984, which recalls the opposition between the free school and the private school with a defence of private schools; "Musulmanes" ("Muslim women"), in 1986, which casts a pessimistic and bitter look at the rights of women in Islamic countries but which also pays a tribute to Arabic culture.

At the end of the 1980s, Sardou received the recognition of his peers by being awarded a Music Victory for "Musulmanes" as the best song of the year.

In the 1990s, the run of hit singles dried up, even if his four albums had very good sales. Sardou chose, for his shows in Paris, the Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy in 1989, 1991, 1993, 1998 and 2001, and managed to fill this small stadium for a total of 88 times after his tour in 2001, [7] each time with more than 17,000 spectators. He also holds the record of attendances and performances for this stadium.

He received, in 1990 and in 1999, the Music Victory for the biggest number of spectators gathered at the end of a tour (in 1998, nearly 580,000 people have come to see him on stage. [4] )

After the album Français (2001) and its promotional tour, Sardou announced his retirement from singing.

The renewal (2004–2013)

Michel Sardou at the Palais des Sports in 2005. Pds053cut.jpg
Michel Sardou at the Palais des Sports in 2005.

In 2004, Sardou signed a contract with the record label Universal Music France for a new album entitled Du plaisir, he participated in the French television show Star Academy and he organised an international tour in 2004 and 2005, visiting France, Belgium, Switzerland and Canada.

On 13 November 2006, the double album Hors format was released. This album includes twenty-three new songs, one of which is a duet with Chimène Badi, "Le chant des hommes" ("The Song of Men"). "Hors Format" has reached 400,000 copies sold and is a double platinum. In 2007, he started another tour, visiting venues like the Olympia and the Zénith de Paris. "Le Blues Black Brothers" was released January 1st, 2004.

He released the album Être une femme (2010) on 30 August 2010. Tracks include an electronic style remix by the DJ Laurent Wolf of his own 1980s hit "Être une femme", and a duet with Céline Dion, "Voler" ("To Fly"). [6] The subsequent tour met with further success.

Les grands moments (The Great Moments), a compilation album of his greatest hits, was released 22 October 2012. In 2012 and 2013 Sardou gave a show of the same name, showcasing his material all the way back to the mid-1960s. The show was staged at the Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy for three dates in December 2012 and five dates at the Olympia in June 2013. But medical issues forced Sardou to cancel the twelve last dates.

In September 2014, he began playing the lead role in a play written especially for him by Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt, Si on recommençait ? (If we begin again ?).

Several of Sardou's songs also feature prominently in the French comedy film "La famille Bélier", released in 2014.

Personal life

Sardou married Françoise Pettré, a dancer, in 1965. [2] They have two daughters : Sandrine (born on 15 January 1970) and Cynthia (born on 4 December 1973). [2] They divorced in 1977. He married his second wife, Elizabeth Haas, called "Babette", in October 1977. [2] They have two sons : Romain, writer (born on 6 January 1974) and Davy, actor (born on 1 June 1978). [2] They divorced in June 1999. On 11 October 1999, married Anne-Marie Périer, the daughter of the actor François Périer and the sister of the photographer Jean-Marie Périer. She is the former editor-in-chief of Elle magazine. [8] They were married in Neuilly-sur-Seine by then-mayor Nicolas Sarkozy. [8]

Discography

Albums

YearTitleChartsCertification
FRA
[9]
BEL
(Wa)

[10]
NED SWI
1968Petit – Les Ricains8
1970J'habite en France2
1972Danton2
1973La maladie d'amour1
1976La vieille1
1977La java de Broadway2
1978Je vole1
1979Verdun10
1980Victoria18
1981Les lacs du Connemara1
1982Il était là2
1983Vladimir Ilitch4
1984Io Domenico1
1985Chanteur de jazz5
1987Musulmanes1
1988Le successeur2
1989Sardou 66
1990Le privilège2
  • FRA: 2× Platinum [11]
1992Le bac G1
1994Selon que vous serez, etc., etc.1
1997Salut1148
1998Les grandes moments23
2000Français1217
2004Du plaisir12629
2006Hors format1117
2010Être une femme 2010214510
  • BEL: Platinum [19]
  • FRA: 3× Platinum [12]
2017Le choix du fou216
2021En Chantant56
2023Intime19
Engagé922
2024Je me souviens d'un adieu124

Live albums

YearAlbumChart positions
FRA
Album certifications
1971Olympia 71
1975Olympia 751
1976Olympia 764
1979Palais des Congrès 7834
1981Palais des Congrès 81
1983Vivant 832
1985Concert 85
1987Concert 878
1989Bercy 895
1991Bercy 919
1993Bercy 936
1995Olympia 953
1998Bercy 985
2001Bercy 20015
2005Live 2005 au Palais des sports11
2008Zénith 2007
2011Confidences et retrouvailles – Live 20118
2013Les grands moments – Live 201323
2018La dernière danse – Live 2018 à La Seine musicale16
2021Le concert de sa vie7

Compilation albums

Singles and various songs

Best known for songs before 1983
Hits after 1983 with chart positions
YearTitleChartsAlbum
FRA
[9]
BEL
(Wa)
NED
Single
Top 100
SWI
1984"Les deux écoles"48Sardou 1984
"Délire d'amour"10
1985"Io Domenico"17
"Les deux écoles"7Sardou 1985
1986"1986"31
"Musulmanes"5Sardou 1986
1987"Tous les bateaux s'envolent"8Regards
1988"La même eau qui coule"5Sardou 1988
1989"Attention les enfants... danger"960
1990"Marie-Jeanne"2Sardou 1990
1991"Le privilège"19
"Le vétéran"35
1992"Le bac G"15Sardou 1992
1993"Le cinéma d'Audiard"45
2000"Cette chanson-là"1521Français
2004"La rivière de notre enfance"
(with Garou)
1114Français

Emblematic songs

Collaborations and appearances

Victoires de la Musique

Preceded by Song of the year
1987 – "Musulmanes"
Succeeded by
Preceded by
Award for the biggest number of spectators
1990
Succeeded by
Preceded by Male artist of the year
1991
Succeeded by
Preceded by
Award for the biggest number of spectators
1999
Succeeded by

Other activities

Theatre manager

Sardou was the owner of the Théâtre de la Porte Saint-Martin in Paris from 2001 to 2003. [23] [24]

Theatre actor

Film actor

TV actor

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References

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