Double CD and Double DVD Box Set (DVD 1: the concert filmed at the Casino de Paris + DVD 2: Fictional portrait by Laetitia Masson + 2 x CD: original album La Superbe)

The release of a Benjamin Biolay album is, in a roundabout way, a pretext for comparison with his peers in the new French music scene. It is also an opportunity to take a step back, as his musical and lyrical language is in many respects superior to the average.

This double album, La superbe, follows the diptych À l'origine / Trash Yéyé, which saw him explore darker themes. Melancholy, at the heart of his work, is of course strongly present, and stories of thwarted love are numerous and detailed ("15 août," "Miss Catastrophe," or "Tu es mon amour" on the first part).

Unfolding La superbe is like listening to the soundtrack of a sentimental education that is renewed each time as so many different scripts and musical pieces. A first part rich in arrangements and meticulous accompaniment (saxophone and theremin are called upon) is followed by a second disc that is more rhythmic and binary, closing the diary of a month or a year from "August 15" to "September 15."

The singer has changed nothing of the disillusioned style that makes up his charm, between talk-over and emphasized choruses. Benjamin Biolay meets his ambitions with an album that in no way usurps its title: La superbe is the masterstroke long expected from him. It just goes to show that bad love stories make for great works.