Belinda Carlisle - Voila

Belinda Carlisle's got a record out! In French!

I just don't know what to say. For one thing, how the hell do I categorise it? It's Belinda Carlisle, but it's not pop. And it's French songs. French songs fit no clearly identifiable genre except 'French music' and there's no way I'm taking the trouble to add that. Just how many French records am I likely to be reviewing?

Someone - some philosopher - once said that even if a Lion could speak English, you wouldn't understand it. His point being that your worlds are so far apart, you'd have no common ground. Your values and reference points bear such little relation to each other that you'd be mutually incomprehensible, despite speaking the same language.

It's the same with the French. For all that I admire their food and their sniffy attitude to the US, at the end of the day, just what do they spend their time listening to and why? Belinda Carlisle seems to think that she knows, but she doesn't. Rest assured, behind her back, the French are going: "She has it all wrong. She takes no pleasure in the misery and she doesn't do enough ambiguous shrugs".