Music Review: Gigi D'Agostino: L'amour Toujours
Written by: Kage Alan

Album Rating: B+

              I'm starting to think that I ought to just move to Europe because of how much Europop and Eurodance music I listen to.  Maybe we ought to just lure some of their music artists over here like we do their actors and then ship them all of our Britney Spears and Britney clones.  Let them choke on our sickeningly sweet image-only music for a while.  Hmm, was I just off on a tangent?  Okay, well, I heard my first Gigi D'Agostino song last summer in Chicago.  We were driving to Ikea and listening to our MP3 player because, if you must know, we can't be bothered to listen to the crap the radio plays, so we bring our own. Anyway, "I'll Fly With You" came on and I was absolutely riveted.  What a sound!  What an absolutely gorgeous blend of male and female vocals!  It's just one of those songs that sweeps you up and you don't know whether to dance, sing along or do both.

Fortunately, the full album doesn't entirely disappoint. Too often we are featured a great first single that has little to do with how the rest of an album sounds.  Remember Merrill Bainbridge and the danceable "Mouth" that was nowhere to be found in that form on the CD?  Well, none of that here.  The only thing disappointing about this CD is that a better version exists in Canada with a second disc full of tracks not included in the US release.   Typical.  Absolutely typical.  And the US record companies wonder why so many people have turned to the Internet for their music.

Well, Gigi D'Agostino starts off the CD with a great dance number called
"Another Way." There isn't much to the song lyrically and it does tend to get
a bit repetitive, but the chorus is very catchy.  It's also one of my
favorite 4 tracks.  Track 2 is a long version of the hit "I'll Fly With You."
I have no idea who the female vocalist is on this song, but she's wonderful
as is his voice.  It's dance and yet it's something more.  I described it
earlier as a song that sweeps you up and that's exactly what it does.  My
mother actually loves the song and she's never been real big on Eurodance
until this, so what does that tell you?  I've got one hip mother, that's
what!

Another favorite is track 4, a remake of Nik Kerhsaw's "The Riddle." I don't
remember the original, so I can't compare them, but this version of the song
is wonderfully catchy and danceable.  Considering how many CD singles I've
seen from this album in the import bins, I'd be surprised if this wasn't
played and easily recognizable in many of the dance clubs.  "Star" is another
one of those songs that takes a little bit to get going because the lyrics
are extremely repetitive, mostly the "Bla Bla Bla" sound for quite some time,
but the chorus is again what makes the whole thing worth listening to.  It's
dance with a twist because Gigi has chosen not to edit the songs down to a
bare minimum for the sake of radio play.  We get a nice long cut whether we
want it or not.  More please!

The rest of the songs are okay, not terrible, but not nearly as good as the
standout tracks.  I think they are more painfully obvious as lesser songs
because it's a dance album and judged a bit differently than say an album by
Celine Dion or Enya.  There are also two tracks that feature the same remake,
"La Passion (Medley with Rectangle)" and then the straight up version of
"Rectangle." Why use it twice?  I don't have a clue, but oddly enough it
works.  Go figure.  Gigi also liked some of the "Bla Bla Bla" lyrics from
"I'll Fly With You" enough to give them their own song.  Why?  It's annoying,
plain and simple!  To add insult to injury, the only extra track the US
released includes is a remix of "Bla Bla Bla." Somebody please smack the
daylights out of whoever it was at Arista who did this.

While 4 great songs don't make for a perfect album or a perfect rating,
there's enough decent material on here to make the entire disc worth
listening to in between hits, except for that damn "Bla Bla Bla" song and
remix that follows.  I think it will be easy for many to dismiss Gigi
D'Agostino as another dance hack, but when it sounds THIS good, who cares? It's too bad this kind of music doesn't catch on more in North America
because it's very much a break from our sensationalized Pop artists in tight
blouses and our "I'm-so-depressed-that-I'm-going-to-sing-about-it-so-I-can-depress-everybody-else" moody performers.  Super models have to eat and the public has to dance. Gigi D'Agostino is the answer.                                                                     

Kage holds degrees in Creative Writing, as well as Film & Video. He has been featured in a Life Journey Tele-Course, published poems in several national anthologies, been a contributor to The Third Coast Magazine and written several novels. kage@modamag.com