L' Imperatrice

One Liner: Funky French groovy pop

Wikipedia Genre: Pop, nu-disco (I wish I never knew that someone had ever written "nu-disco" anywhere), and electro
Home: Paris.

Poster Position: 13
Both Weekends.  Friday.

Thoughts:  I'm certain that I already told this story on this blog somewhere, but I foolishly took French as my language in middle school and high school.  This was in part because one of my best friends wanted to take it as well, but I would later discover that both of us pretty much had a crush on the same girl who was also taking French.  Learning an entire (well, a portion of a) language because of a crush is a deeply stupid thing to do.  Also, some dick whose last name was higher than mine in the alphabet always grabbed "Jacques" as their frenchy name, so I got stuck with weird shit like Emile and Xavier.  BUT, I can order a potato in a restaurant, so I'm sure you are deeply jealous.

In case you are confused, I tell that story because this band sings in French.  Unfortunately for me, the lyrics are not just them ordering potatoes, strawberries, bread, and water in a French restaurant, so I am left without any understanding of what they are going on about.  But then some of the songs are in English too.

You know what these people do well?  They get freaking funky.  Lotta 70's bass bumping in these songs.  And when combined with French lyrics you just have to think that this music is definitely intended for making sweet love.  If their show at ACL isn't just a sex party, I'm going to be very deeply disappointed.

L' Imperatrice means The Empress.  The group is a pile of six musicians and includes two keyboardists because they needed more of the 70's boogie.  Only one gal, the vocalist for most of the songs that have vocals.  They won something called the Deezer Adami Fans' award in 2016.  Strangely, I cannot find out anything about that award, except to tell you that Deezer is a music streaming service in Europe.  Spotify shows them as having three albums, although two of those are the same album but French and English versions.

The top track, by a large margin, is one called "Vanilla Fraise," which means "vanilla strawberry."  I TOTALLY KNEW THAT WAS STRAWBERRY, Y'ALL!  56.4 million streams.  

SEE WHAT I MEAN?!?!  SEX PARTY.  They're gonna feed us some of that special ice cream, start playing funky tunes, and everyone will be heaving in passion.  Guarantee that tune is on a bunch of playlists for chilling with your expensive friends.  They also have two other tunes with 40 millions streams, so they're doing some good numbers.

Off the new disc, 2021's Tako Tsubo, the top track is "Peur des filles," which I was going to translate into "for the ladies," but it actually means "fear of girls."  which is a very different thing!

Just with the videos alone, these people seem like fun.  Add some funky music to the mix, and it really seems like a treat worth enjoying.  "they don't have the same thing down there" just made me laugh out loud.  One article I just read called them Space Pop and I like that idea.

I also want you to hear "Voodoo," because it bangs.

Running that bass through some sweet pedals for a freaking cool as hell sound.  I'm ready to disco roller skate immediately.

I'd go see this. More than likely there will be something else during its time slot that is a more immediate need, but I really have enjoyed the funky grooves today.