Stromae seems to have understood the value of passing time. Very quickly, regarding Multitudehis third career album, which comes out nine years after Square root : twelve songs delivered in 36 minutes, and not one too many. The Belgian star returns to the stage with an album thought out down to the smallest detail, which he has produced superbly and on which he tackles with his brilliant pen delicate subjects such as depression, the complexity of romantic relationships, the role of women and that of being a father… as well as feces.
Even the colleague of The Guardian had noticed: it is often question of poo on Multitude — in three of the twelve new songs, to be precise. “Yeah, I talk a lot about pooping and pooping in general on this album,” Stromae replied to him during an interview published last Friday in the major British daily, reminding the interviewer of becoming a father in the fall. 2018.
The topic — fatherhood more than changing diapers — was as inevitable as the mental health issues that plagued him in 2015, the result of a dangerous cocktail of overwork and malaria medication. Unveiled on January 9 during the TF1 channel’s telejournal (not without a certain controversy mixed with amazement), the song hell tackles his discomfort head-on, to a swaying rhythm enhanced by Bulgarian choirs: “I’ve sometimes had suicidal thoughts and I’m not very proud of them / We sometimes think that it’s the only way to silence them / these thoughts who make me live through hell.
Snub to mental illness
Thus, Stromae begins Multitude with a snub to mental illness, to a brief but triumphant song titled Unbeaten : “Yes, I paid the price and I find it difficult to write it and find it difficult to say it / even weakened, on my feet, to the last cry / fucking sickness”. Behind the text rapped in a tone of bravado, a symphony orchestra driven by a rhythmic house reminiscent of the great hymns of Square root and of Cheesehis first album, released in 2010 (with the unforgettable hit Then we dance).
But from the first listening to this third album, we measure the aesthetic difference with his first two. Less rhythmic, less electronic above all, less dance, closer to the emotions of the text. Stromae’s genius was to hijack worn-out popular music, European-style dance-pop, to give it meaning thanks to the great tradition of song-to-text. Today, it is in the openness to other musical cultures that he expresses the multitude that gives a title to the album.
More than in the text, it is in its musical influences that Stromae delivers a message, its multicultural vision of the universal language of music. Everything fits together perfectly without being diluted, the distinct musical ingredients retaining their flavor in the pop vision of the artist.
On the second excerpt Health — a famous text celebrating essential workers, these “professional insomniacs” — he calls on an Argentinian collaborator to inject a little party at his own pace. On loneliness, he spreads the melody of a Chinese violin (erhu) over an Afro-pop rhythm. On This is happiness and Bad daythe soul of the Bolivian musical tradition, the charango guitar, steals the show, while elements of Arab-Muslim musical traditions (the saz and this Persian oboe called zurna) adorn the orchestrations (courtesy of the National Orchestra of Belgium) Not really and of Declaration.
The latter stands out, because its text is especially powerful. A feminist profession of faith, the album’s second after sons of joy. A perfect song, the melody of the chorus inspired by the African, the words that resonate: “But above all, madam should not wear panties / even if the mental load, we know who wears it / And if being feminist has become fashionable / it’s always better seen to be a bastard than a slut”.
About Multitude doesn’t always have the strength and relevance of his best songs, Declaration, hell and Healtheven when Stromae revisits the subject of love, we have the impression that he has racked his brains a little too long to unearth a new angle (on Not really and loneliness, both of which deal with spent loves). The album also ends with two songs which, ultimately, tell the same facet of a piece, despite what their titles (Bad day and Good dayto which texts collaborates the friend Orelsan) lead to believe.
All the same, Stromae still has this extraordinary talent for telling raw truths with the help of elegant images, and Multitude still contains several more. On This is happinesshe thus expresses the reality of new parents, as if he were talking to his offspring: “I gave you life, you saved mine / If you knew how much I love you / I I’ve never loved so much, I barely know you / Need a first for everything / and thank you for destroying mum’s body / She didn’t love herself very much, but it’s worse than before”.