Nearly an hour spent Thursday evening with Virginie B at the Belmont imposes this testimony of approval.
The singer attracts attention for her extravagant and (very) sexy outfits, her infectious lasciviousness and her ability to throw herself all over the place in front of an audience. Virginie B has the talent to surround herself with excellent musicians, and her artistic direction is fine, enlightened and visionary in a pop context.
A backdrop of a circular screen, highly competent musicians, a genuine stage beast, a talented frontwoman who soon made us forget the relative tenuity of her vocal organ, reminiscent of feminine French pop.
Their musical influences, however, have little to do with the pop of their cousins, drawing instead on Flying Lotus and all those LA jazz funksters converted to hip-hop à la J Dilla. Virginie B is also inspired by the frenetic grooves of footwork and ghettotech in the USA and (less) jungle/drum’n’bass in the UK.
His soul-pop tunes and penchant for easy-listening soften these pointed references, while the lyrics (mostly) written in good-natured Quebecois French create a certain familiarity and certainly raise the level of our local pop.
As we saw after the release of her album Insula (2022), Virginie B has great taste. Because she knows how to put her sharp sense of pop culture to good use. Because she also knows how to build her own whimsical, sensual persona, with just the right touch of self-mockery.
In short, she puts on quite a show!
The 100-euro question then comes to mind: will Virginie B break into the European market and increase her fan base tenfold? Let’s hope so, because the album Astral 2000, just released by Bonsound, is in no way inferior to any production of its kind beyond our borders… and extremely rare in the French pop world.
