Nouvelle Vague is a concept designed by French musicians Marc Collin and Olivier Libaux consisting of having female singers (previously called "girls") performing new wave and rock songs with bossa nova arrangements. The experimental character of the project is enhanced by having singers performing songs they had never heard before. Yes, the entire thing is very French.
Their first two albums were very successful, at least in France. For 3, they were even able to recruit people like Martin Gore, who sings the back voice for "Master and Servant."
Overall, the entire concept of Nouvelle Vague is not that bad. Their music is OK for listening in an office and, quite honestly one gets to appreciate the music with a set of headphones. The arrangements are worth the price of the albums.
I guess that the problem with this band is that they take classic songs and rip them off their essence to make them palatable to all audiences -with the remarkable exception of the people who heard the original versions. But that's not the problem of Nouvelle Vague. During the first decade of the 21st century commercial art general was characterized by remakes. Hopefully that was just a trend and originality will eventually come back.
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