PHILIPPE SWAN

Successful French-speaking songwriter who has managed to escape from the rigid limitations of the genre by mixing in hiphop, rap and synthesizers in his later music.

His first success dates back from 1988 when he had a hit with the charming single "Dans ma rue" (in my street).

In 1996 he released a very successful album called "Hip pop" on which he modernized his music. From the bio :
"What's in a name, or rather a title? Swan is playing the postmodern zazoo and proves without the shadow of a doubt that yes, Kenneth, God is Rock. The beats are hip, the melodies pop and men and machines meet head-on. Philippe takes them all off on his magic carpet to a neck of the sky that is always blue and the only bad vibes can be heard faintly as an echo of the wind"

"Philippe Swan is a dreamer. A young man who refused to choose between the Beach Boys and Otis Redding, between doo-wop and rap. For him, it will always be The Beatles AND the Stones. He has distilled the essence of French pop from the sixties, and brought it swinging into the nineties. For although the world might be a brutish place, one can at least catch its rare moments of beauty and turn them into songs."

In 1998, Philippe Swan resurfaced in "grand style", by his writing for youngster Mélanie Cohl on her Eurovision-song hit "Dis Oui" and the consequent album.

In 1999, he released a new record called "Troisième Millénaire".
In an interview with Télé-Moustique he told the title of the album is about "Au malaise de l'an 2000 qu'on voyait très futuriste et qui est plutôt désespérant, j'ai voulu répondre par un conseil : profitez de l'amour pendant que c'est encore possible" - "I wanted to respond with an advice to the malaise around the year 2,000 - that was first seen as something very futuristic but now is seen as something discouraging : enjoy love as long as it's still possible". In a musical sense, the singer has gone back to his old love "chanson", after the more contemporary excursions on his former album "Hip-pop" of '94.

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Albums (who has more information on this ??) :
- ...
- Sâle reveur (Polygram, 1990)
- ...
- Hippop (Cheap Music, 1996)
- Troisième Millénaire (AMC, 1999)

Websites :
- More songs and info from the album Hip pop can be found on the website of Netbeat.

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