- Top 1OJun
About
File under
Lana Del Rey, Lorde
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Ethereal torch-songs
" Melancholic electro-pop about love and its tribulations. "
Ana Benabdelkarim found her moniker, Silly Boy Blue, in an early David Bowie song. Her admiration for the late British artist who shaped pop music as we know it is palpable in her music, questioning genre, favouring androgyny, adding glam characteristics and so on. It wouldn’t be fair to reduce Silly Boy Blue’s music to a mere tribute, though. Her personal thoughts, fears and fascinations stand out in her songs, which definitely belong to the 21st century while indulging in nostalgia from time to time.
These electro-pop sounds were imagined by a young woman who was born in 1996 in Nantes, on the West coast of France. Ana started making music as a member of the band Pégase in the 2010s. At the time, she had several experiences as a journalist under the name Ana Benabs, writing articles and interviewing musicians. Eventually, she decided to go through the looking-glass and be the interviewee instead of the interviewer. She launched her solo project with an EP, ‘But You Will’ (2018). Then she signed to Sony Music and two albums followed, ‘Breakup Songs’ (2021) and ‘Eternal Lover’ (2023), mostly written from her bedroom with some keyboards and a lot of ideas. These titles clearly give away the main themes of her intimate torch-songs, love and heartbreak, handled in an ethereal atmosphere.
Although she sings in English, Silly Boy Blue is winning over more and more French hearts: she was one of the three nominees for Best New Female Artist in 2022 at the ‘Victoires de la musique’ ceremony – the idea that music is a victory completely fits her vision of her art.
