Search - Saint Tropez :: Belle de Jour

Belle Du Jour

06/26/2003

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This album made its way to my collection in vinyl many years ago. I think the song Belle du Jour is the best song on the album and was very excited to see it in CD version.This group is not very well known today but had a small following in the 80's.I would recommend it to anyone who loves French romance/passion."

A Plesant Surprise

Iron Man Hondo | Chicago Il. | 09/01/2007

(4 out of 5 stars)

"The year was 1978. Truth be told, I had never heard of Saint Tropez. My father was in the entertainment business at the time and had some pretty good connections with recording artists and excutives. He would get some perks such as free demo records. In 1978, as a teenager, my father gave me three or four demos. Saint Tropez, Belle de Jour was one of them. Saint Tropez was unknown to me at this time and it would be two years before I would give this album a chance. As the old saying goes, "Better late than never." I finally gave it a listen in 1980. "Fill My Life" was the first track on this effort. Of course at this time Disco is starting to die an agonizing death. This album was the last of the dying breed. "Fill My Life" really had the deep disco sound, but was still a good song anyway. The second track "One More Minute" had that up tempo disco sound. Nothing that would set it aside from anything that was made at the time. But then the third track, "Hold On to Love," gave up the ballroom disco dancing motiff. The strings in the background of this song made this particular song a nice change of pace. Kind of like David Shire's instrumental from the "Saturday Night Fever" soundtrack "Manhatten Skyline." Come to think of it, most of the good disco songs had very good orchestration. In this department Belle de Jour was no slouch. It isn't until you get to the flipside (boy, is this a lost term!) of this effort that the album gets interesting. The title, Belle de Jour" track is all in French. I don't speak but a little French and this was well beyond my understanding as far as the language gap. Thus I was reduced to listening to the music which was very good. The instrumentation, excellent! It wouldn't be until years later that the meaning of the songs words would be reveled to me. Mostly about a married man in a homosexual relationship, that refued to leave his wife for his male lover. So the jilted lover kills the wife. The last track, When You Were Gone, is also done in spoken French. But just like the title track (another lost term) the orchestration was outstanding. I refused to have this song translated for me. This album is a personal classic to me because it did catch me by surprise at a time of my life that started the rest of my life, GRADUATION FROM HIGH SCHOOL! I don't reccomend this album because of the gay overtones, but because it's a good album. It is rich in the disco tone, but in a good way. Disco got it's start in Europe and was imported to the States. This in no way means that this album is the Americanized disco that some of us grew to hate. By far this is superior to anything in America as far as disco is concerned. This effort never got the air time that it should have. It wasn't until the 80's that Belle de Jour, title track, got some air play but from another album. This album< now on c.d. is worth the money. This album is/was/will be a pleasant surprise."