This week, BuzzFeed released an article about Stromae, the Belgian pop singer who released a new music video this week. Many of you may be scratching your heads or wondering who Stromae is, why his social commentary matters, and where he came from.
When studying abroad, I came across Stromae while in clothing store, then in a coffee shop, on the train, and in a disco. Within a day, this artist had shown up everywhere my friends and I went. The melody of his songs stuck with me all day (and all week and all month). As a predominately French singer I thought this was odd, as my program was in Italy. I came to find that Stromae had much deeper roots than those in France and Belgium, extending his popularity to Italy and even some places very close to home.
Stromae's international journey to fame began in 2009, continuing on to the present. He has two albums and several video on YouTube. His popularity has been increasing massively in every country, including America. Stomae has been sneaking into your radio since 2010, when Kanye West and Stromae made a collaborative remix of Stromae's song "Alors on danse." In 2014, Stromae also snuck into one of America's favorite movie series' soundtracks, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay-Part 1. His fame is spreading, making his music video for his song "Carmen" matter.
Stromae's social commentary about Twitter in "Carmen" matters because of his international popularity. The video, drawn by Sylvain Chomet, shows an aggressive blue bird slowly taking over Stromae's life. With so much talk of technology slowly taking over, this song comes at an opportune time. Perhaps it is time to take notice of the message -- and of Stromae. With this video, and the controversy it will create, Stromae is a musician to watch within the coming year.
If you like the video in the link you may also like these songs by Stromae:
