Stromae: A sleight of hand with depth

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Stromae alias Paul van Haver (archive picture): the appearance as an event

Photo: Johnny Nunez / WireImage / Getty Images

It's a coup, a stroke of genius, maybe even a cheek.

At first, however, it was an ordinary interview, as Anne-Claire Coudray has often conducted with her guests.

The »Journal de 20 heures« on the French channel TF1 is the most watched news program in Europe, and this time the presenter speaks to the Belgian musician Paul van Haver.

Under the stage name Stromae he is considered one of the most talented artists on the continent - even if this insight has not yet been able to overcome the language barrier to Germany, where his songs about cancer or youth unemployment for harmless chansons and a global success like »Alors On Danse« thinks it is a cheerful holiday hit.

Seven years ago, when he was on the way to world fame, Stromae had surprisingly withdrawn due to mental problems.

And was gone.

Completely.

Now he's back, his third album will be released in March.

"In your songs you talk a lot about loneliness," says Coudray and at some point asks: "Did the music help you to get rid of it?"

A dabbed piano can be heard from somewhere.

And Stromae sings.

All of a sudden he sings: “I'm not alone in feeling alone, and that makes me a little easier.

And if I were to add us all up, we would be many «, and so he sings on without moving, soon straight into the camera, about depression, suicidal thoughts and private hell,» L'Enfer «sings from upcoming album.

Media surprise

The chanson is staged as his answer to the question.

With mimic minimalism, Stromae only takes up one or the other aspect of the music, while careful direction gradually deprives the magnificently illuminated Paris in the background of any color.

After just under three minutes, the song is over, the colors and the light return, and Coudray thanks him for this "gift".

In fact, the appearance is a media surprise that is unprecedented in our day.

An event.

The highlight is the silence of the performance - and the crossing of boundaries, to smuggle the art from the stage into the journalistic conversation itself.

Usually a musician goes on stage after the interview.

Not here.

Here, it seems, a person's heart is so overflowing that he tips over from talking to singing - a classic musical moment, unexpected and at prime time.

In the French-speaking world, this production is widely celebrated as a sensation.

An exception is the left-wing daily newspaper »Liberation«, which sees »red lines« being crossed because a serious medium has opened up here for »marketing«.

The editorial team of the show was inaugurated, and the form of the presentation contributed to the surprise effect.

The clean break - the interview here, the show there - was gone for a few magical minutes.

Certainly one can criticize that.

You can find it cheesy.

All the more vehemently when one is not affected by melancholy or even depression.

One can also consider it questionable from a journalistic point of view.

All the more violent when you don't want to know anything about the artist and consider art to be a product for which something as shabby as "advertising" is only allowed in the specially designated places - and not a work that says something about life from life could tell.

Irritating and enchanting at the same time

The moment he starts singing, the real thing is that the advertising stops - and the art begins to make its real impact.

The arrangement of such irritations is one of his talents.

In December, Stromae had staged the single "Santé" on Jimmy Fallon's "Tonight Show" in such an irritating and enchanting way that one should never have seen it on US television either.

And years ago he succeeded in a comparable trick in the “Grand Journal” of a French private broadcaster, when he was asked for his song “Tous le même” in a double role as man and woman - before he embodied both genders on stage at the

.

»L'Enfer« on TF1 surpasses this earlier appearance in that Stromae undercuts it in terms of performance.

No dancers, no wind machines.

Just a guy who sits there and sings about desperation, as a Jacques Brel could last, and as if he were really alone, not on a "plateau de téle" in front of an audience of millions.

A guy you can

what he's singing.

In this country, Die Ärzte recently managed to play the intro to the »Tagesthemen« - also a cultural intervention in journalistic processes.

So it cannot be ruled out that one day a Marietta Slomka will have a conversation in the “heute journal” about a socially relevant topic like depression.

And that this interview could take a staged but breathtaking turn as we were able to see it on French television.

It's just a little depressing that, with the best will in Germany, you can't think of anyone who is willing to take such a risk or be able to be so cheeky.