When urban music dresses up the Eiffel Tower

Indila with “Dernière danse” or PNL with “Au DD” update the imagery of the most famous monument in the world in spectacular videos featuring the Eiffel Tower. A way of inserting oneself into a long tradition of popular cultures, but very profitable in terms of audience.

In partnership with the exhibition It’s a song that resembles us – Worldwide hits of French-speaking popular music At the Cité internationale de la langue française in Villers-Cotterêts, these chronicles look in detail at each of the stories presented there.

There is nothing we can do about it, but Last Dance by Indila is for millions of people as much a song as a film. Of course, the prodigies of American, Korean or Latin pop have produced them before, but in French-language popular music, it is the first clip to have accumulated a billion views on YouTube. This symbolic score was reached in May 2023, a few months before in November, then in December, two other French-language songs reached this symbolic milestone: Papaoute by Stromae and Ego by Willy William. These are the first three billion French on YouTube. And Indila took 10 years to reach the billion with images that are both romantic and contemporary of Paris, because the singer is the heroine of this video, almost equal to her extraordinary urban setting.

Long before Indila was born, another young woman was walking around Paris on screen, following someone’s trail. It was Danièle Delorme, who starred alongside France Roche, among others, in Without leaving an addressthe film by Jean-Paul Le Chanois in 1951. But if the clip of Last Dance has so much success around the world, it is also because we come across a character familiar to any Parisian imagination: the Eiffel Tower. Between 1930 and 2023, Perchicot, Mistinguett, Charles Trenet, Jacques Dutronc, Marc Lavoine, Madame Monsieur, and always the Eiffel Tower. Sometimes a proud beacon of the capital, sometimes a disturbing silhouette, sometimes a reassuring splendor, as in the rancidities of Indila, in Last Dancecinematic stories parallel to the emotions of his song. And it is not the only song of the 21st century to renew the imagery of this old Eiffel Tower.

In this episode of It’s a song that resembles usyou hear excerpts from:

Indila, Last dance, 2013

Willy William, Ego, 2015

Stromae, Papaoutai, 2013

Indila, Last dance, 2013

Danièle Delorme, France Roche, Michel Piccoli, Bernard Blier in Without leaving an address, by Jean-Paul Le Chanois, 1951

Perchicot, When we see the Eiffel Tower again, 1930

Mistinguett, The Eiffel Tower is still there, 1942

Charles Trenet, Meet at the Eiffel Tower, 1949

Jacques Dutronc, It’s five o’clock, Paris is waking up, 1968

Marc Lavoine, Paris, 1991

Madam Sir, Eiffel Tower, 2023

NLP, To the DD, 2019

Indila, Last dance, 2013

You can also extend this column with the book It’s a song that resembles us published by Heritage Publishing.

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