Happy Birthday, Plastic Bertrand

Dan Gibson | February 24, 2009 11:30 am

Sure, most people have heard Plastic Bertrand‘s “Ça plane pour moi” (whether during the KROQ golden age of alternative music or plugs for the CW’s slate of dramas). But who spends a lot of time thinking about what the man born Roger Marie François Jouret on this day in 1954 is up to these days? As a way of wishing Mr. Bertrand a happy 55th birthday, let’s see what he’s been up to.

There was probably a six-month period when I would have told you I was a Plastic Bertrand fan, but that really was just because I went on a run of downloading his late-’70s and early-’80s work from Soulseek. I do still think his ridiculously pop-oriented translation of punk holds up reasonably well.

“Téléphone à téléphone”:

“Super Cool”:

“Ça plane pour moi”:

Plastic Bertrand also composed the Luxembourg entry in 1987’s edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. How did it only place 21st (out of 22 entries)? Is it possible the entire system is rigged?

“Amour Amour”:

This decade seems to have been pretty good to Plastic Bertrand, as he’s appeared on various European variety shows and apparently did quite well on the French version of the Weakest Link. I can’t quite parse what’s up with this particular track, but I think it’s some sort of a comeback. Thankfully, it’s the sort of comeback that attempts to replicate exactly what I liked about the act in the first place.

“Edgar Allen Proust”:

Happy 55th birthday, Plastic Bertrand. Thanks for whatever it is you’ve been doing.

Plastic Bertrand [Official site]