{"id":1179,"date":"2017-10-10T22:43:39","date_gmt":"2017-10-10T22:43:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/perfectmusictoday.com\/?p=1179"},"modified":"2017-10-10T22:43:39","modified_gmt":"2017-10-10T22:43:39","slug":"jpl-scientist-moonlights-singer-helping-revive-french-ye-ye-pop-tradition-la-la-land","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/perfectmusictoday.com\/index.php\/2017\/10\/10\/jpl-scientist-moonlights-singer-helping-revive-french-ye-ye-pop-tradition-la-la-land\/","title":{"rendered":"JPL scientist moonlights as singer helping to revive French y\u00e9-y\u00e9 pop tradition, only in La-La Land."},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"tn-3\"\"tn-10\"<\/p>\n

Michael Hepworth<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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JPL scientist moonlights as singer helping to revive French y\u00e9-y\u00e9 pop tradition<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s not rocket science.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2018Y\u00e9-y\u00e9 music just has to be fun, it doesn\u2019t have to have any deep meaning.\u2019<\/p>\n

Deepspace (Perfect Music Today) 10\/7\/17\/–<\/strong>Singer Victoria and veteran songwriter\/producer Andy Paley have teamed to create “Joueuse,” an EP that revisits the 1960s French pop niche genre of y\u00e9-y\u00e9 music. (Luis Sinco \/ Los Angeles Times) Randy Lewis,It tells the story of producer (The Paley Brothers, Brian Wilson, SpongeBob Squarepants) Andy Paley and his alliance with ecologist Victoria Meyer, a French woman of science who works at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, and their creation of a new body of \u201860s style \u201cy\u00e9-y\u00e9\u201d music.<\/p>\n

When Victoria Meyer was summoned by one of her bosses at La Ca\u00f1ada Flintridge\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory a couple of years ago, she assumed it was for some puzzle related to her daily work poring over satellite imagery for information to better understand issues of climate change and deforestation. As things turned out, it was a problem from another world entirely. \u201cHe said, \u2018My boss has a friend who is a music producer who is looking for someone to help write a song in French,\u2019 \u201d said the woman, a France native, who simply goes by Victoria on \u201cJoueuse,\u201d a new EP with five songs that revisit the 1960s French subgenre of pop music known as y\u00e9-y\u00e9.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an effervescent, insistently melodic sound that sprouted in response to Beatlemania \u2014 the genre\u2019s name (pronounced \u201cyay-yay\u201d) derives from the French rendering of \u201cYeah, yeah, yeah\u201d \u2014 and American pop of that time, specifically girl groups such as the Shirelles, the Chiffons and the Shangri-Las. We\u2019re excited about the release of \u201cSuis Le Soleil\u201d (\u201cFollow The Sun\u201d) the latest single from the pair that is sure to be discussed on the program that\u2019s now available through ITunes:<\/p>\n

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https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/us\/album\/suis-le-soleil-single\/id1293609124<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

That friend who was scouting for a potential translator and writing partner was veteran producer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Andy Paley, who briefly had a power-pop duo in the 1970s with his brother, Jonathan: the Paley Brothers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always loved the sound of classic pop music, and love making records with that sound,\u201d he said during a recent interview in Pasadena over lunch, seated next to Victoria.<\/p>\n

She said his invitation piqued her innate curiosity. \u201cSure, I like challenges, I like new things \u2014 it could be fun,\u201d she said as if making the shift from environmental scientist at JPL to songwriter was as easy as falling off an asteroid. \u201cI said yes right away, and that same night I met with Andy, and we pretty much wrote the first song that night.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Paley, who also has produced records for Brian Wilson, Madonna, the Ramones, Jonathan Richman and Debbie Harry as well as music for the 2005 \u201cSpongeBob SquarePants: The Yellow Album\u201d collection, it wasn\u2019t as if he were expecting Victoria to help him forge a George and Ira Gershwin or Richard Rogers-Lorenz Hart-like team to craft elegantly sophisticated pop songs.<\/p>\n

\u201cY\u00e9-y\u00e9 songs are pretty simple,\u201d he said, unable to resist the elephant-in-the-room quip at hand. \u201cIt\u2019s not rocket science.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAndy made it really fun and easy for me,\u201d Victoria said. \u201cHe told me, \u2018Y\u00e9-y\u00e9 music just has to be fun, it doesn\u2019t have to have any deep meaning.\u2019 That made it easier for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

At their first session in 2015, they quickly came up with a song and soon had a couple more echoing the vibe of such first wave y\u00e9-y\u00e9 progenitors such as Sylvie Vartan, Francoise Hardy and France Gall as well as male counterparts including Johnny Hallyday and Serge Gainsbourg.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s when Paley, now 64, broached the next element their project would need: a singer for the newly minted songs.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe asked me, \u2018Can you sing?\u2019\u201d she said, replicating the head toss and quizzical expression she recalls giving him originally. But Paley loved the direct quality of her vocals on demo versions they created as a test run.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis isn\u2019t a sound where you want an Aretha \u2014 and I love Aretha,\u201d he said. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t call for a Whitney Houston.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the EP, which is available on\u00a0iTunes<\/a>\u00a0and at\u00a0CD Baby<\/a>, Paley framed her endearingly unfussy vocals with vintage-sounding textures in songs that traverse the dramatic twists and turns of\u00a0les histoires de coeur \u2014\u00a0<\/em>affairs of the heart.<\/p>\n

\u201cC\u2019est un Tombeur<\/em>\u00a0(He\u2019s a Player)\u201d is the acerbic response of a woman whose lover likes to play the field. But she\u2019s not fooled: \u201cHe thinks he is mysterious and cooler than James Dean\/ But I can see clearly through his game.\u201d The lyrics are set to a twangy surf rock-meets-spy movie track that would be right at home in a mid-1960s\u00a0Peter Sellers<\/a>\u00a0comedy.<\/p>\n

\u201cFeuille d\u2019automne<\/em>\u00a0(Autumn leaves)\u201d conjures a dreamier vibe in a wispy reflection about a romantic partner who promises more than he can deliver. \u201cThe October breeze is blowing on our tree that turned orange.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then \u201cSuis le Soleil<\/em>\u00a0(Follow the Sun)\u201d evokes an irresistible Motown-steeped garage rock dance groove as Victoria yearns to leave all troubles at home and head to the beach \u2014 the Grande Plage in Biarritz, to be exact.<\/p>\n

Although Victoria, 30, is much too young to have lived through the first wave of y\u00e9-y\u00e9, she says that music still holds sway in her home country, which she left to move to California more than a decade ago. She relocated to Southern California to study at UCLA, where she landed an internship that led to her full-time position at JPL.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s relishing the moonlighting facet of working with Paley, which has been sporadic while she completed PhD studies in environmental science. Now they hope to continue writing and recording, gathering enough songs for a full album, although neither expressed much interest in translating the recordings into a live show.<\/p>\n

Paley thinks the songs will find homes in film or television placements, and some have already been licensed. Primarily, the whole enterprise has been\u00a0un travail d\u2019amour\u00a0<\/em>\u2014 a labor of love \u2014 for both.<\/p>\n

And the tale of a veteran music industry exec who finds an artistic collaborator working at one of the world\u2019s leading scientific research institutions to help revive a niche form of pop music? Well, that\u2019s something that could happen only in La-La Land.<\/p>\n

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Michael Hepworth<\/p>\n

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