In the strict sense of the word, Pourquoi tu pleures? is neither an original sound track nor a new album: the collection doesn’t contain every piece of music in the film (and vice versa), and the songs don’t systematically appear in the same version as they did on the film. Benjamin Biolay sings of love, melancholy and the doubt that floods over you when you’re on the verge of committing to a relationship but don’t really know why. The instrumental piece that opens the album (Pourquoi pleures-tu? – why are you crying) sets the tone, with a dash of retro reminiscent of the sound track to an old French love movie.  

Pas la forme Benjamin Biolay Pourquoi tu pleures (Naïve) 2011 Listen Full discography

Then follows a medley of tracks both classic and modern, served up à la Biolay. Pas la forme, for example, starts up beating a funk rhythm and moves on to an electro-pop eighties sound, and Le bonheur est mon cul is whispered out rap-style against a background of soul.
 
The artist likes to get women to sing, and this album is no exception. You Have Changed, the only English track, is interpreted by the singer Ana Zimmer against some striking guitar chords married with a piano. Two of the film’s actresses also feature: Sarah Adler sings a jazzy L’homme de ma vie and Emmanuelle Devos accompanies Biolay on the duet Pourquoi tu pleures?
 
Although this new album is true to form, Biolay does serve up a few surprises, by playing piano on Amadou and Mariam’s Mon amour ma chérie and revamping Enrico Macias’s Reste moi fidèle with a disenchanted tango tune. The cherry on the cake has to be C’est magnifique, Cole Porter’s* great jazz classic, which elegantly ends the album like an echo of the tone it sets.
 
Benjamin Biolay Pourquoi tu pleures? (Naïve) 2011
 
*Originally interpreted by Dean Martin in its American version, and Luis Mariano in French.
 
Translation by : Anne-Marie Harper