American Roots With a French Twist

Good luck ignoring globalization. The jury’s still out on whether it’s bad, horrible, or simply the latest in business fashion, but it’s been around for a while, and it’ll be around for some time to come. Music is either a recent casualty or beneficiary, depending on whether you wear beanies or ties, with bands engaging in rampant culture-sharing reminiscent of a college freshman with a clean hard drive. Phoenix, a case in point, is an electro-something band that everyone wants to call French pop.

Here’s a band that casually combined soul, punk, and the bassists’ mom’s choral society on their debut album United (2000). Four years later, Alphabetical felt like the band helped themselves to another serving of Marvin Gaye, while spinning some heavier beats in praise of the hip-hop gods. And a little more than a month ago, Live! Thirty Days Ago dropped with all the trappings of a great live album—funk, spunk, and even a few guitar riffs.

Are you confused yet? I wouldn’t expect soul from a French band either, not to mention the combination of it with so many other diverse styles. But somehow, they manage to please. Branco Mazzalai, guitarist for the band, explains the attraction: “[Americans] want something different, so we are not going to give them something they expect.”

But the attraction can’t be entirely exotic, because the idioms that dominate Phoenix’s sound are, by and large, American. Mazzalai cites ’70s soul, and D’Angelo’s mid-to-late ’90s rediscovery of it, as major influences on the band’s sound. Nevertheless, he insists, “what American people like about us is that we are not American ... especially in America, things are very corporate in a way. The rules are heavy, heavy rules, and we feel that we need something fresh.”

Phoenix is definitely fresh. On the one hand, they recognize the need to succeed in an American market, but on the other hand, the way they do that is by bringing something different to the table. They capitalize on the homogeneity of our billboard culture by rejecting it. The trick is that they rely primarily on hip-hop and soul—“black music” as Mazzalai calls it—while still exhibiting an unusual presentation of these genres.

Mazzalai realizes Phoenix is not entirely at home in France. Like fellow scenesters Daft Punk and Air, their lyrics are in English, suggesting not only American hegemony in the music industry, but also a general willingness to comply with it. Even Phoenix’s vocalist, Thomas Mars, sounds like he was born on a farm in Indiana. “The musical culture in France is different,” Mazzalai says. “We are like outsiders [in France], but that’s good.”

In a way, even the music business can’t escape everyone’s favorite global trend. Bands like Phoenix suggest an international scene offers unique opportunities to sample influences and trade culture across borders, something Mazzalai finds exciting. “Boredom is our enemy,” he says. “When we have something that is too predictable, we try to make it more of an adventure.”

Certain internationalist conditions exist that allow Phoenix’s inspired forays, and for that, I deign to pat globalization on the back. And Phoenix’s adventures can’t be discussed without mentioning their live shows. For while their studio albums suggest a strong trust of the subtleties of production, their live shows rebuff such techniques. “We try to play different—the same song, but more animal energy,” Mazzalai says. “The studio is more like a beautiful chicken, or beautiful Chinese cat, and live is more like tiger.”

Personally, I love my Chinese cat studio albums. But Live! Thirty Days Ago has that live aesthetic that proves Phoenix doesn’t need to hide behind glass. Nonetheless, you have to wonder why a soul band with indie cred is putting out a live album. “We wanted to release some kind of bootleg,” Mazzalai says, “but we wanted to have it sound good. We try to draw the perfect circle. Live, it’s more about, you know, sharing people, gathering, voodoo, you know—try to connect in a more instant way.”

Phoenix’s respect for both the live performance and the studio recording is another sign of the band’s disregard for borders and rules. Similarly, Phoenix’s penchant for taking familiar idioms and ideas and giving them a new, progressive face goes back to their love for stateside “black music” which essentially did the same thing. Mazzalai says their attraction to this music is rooted in the fact that “[the artists] are creating something new, reinventing beats, trying to make things evolve. ... We like people who are creative, trying to do something different.”

From the self-proclaimed creators of funky square dance music, that’s a pretty strong statement.