C’est La Vie

Many listeners admired the king of rai’s last couple of albums, notably Liberté, which heard his characterful voice unchained from drum machines and surrounded by gorgeous swooping Cairo strings, oud (lute) and brass with interesting political lyrics. If you are one of them, you’re likely to be disappointed with C'est La Vie, which has him back to full-on cheesy Euro-disco. The title-track might just about make sense in a hotel disco in Casablanca at 2am. But then again, it has already clocked over 20 million YouTube hits and is being touted as this year’s ‘Gangnam Style’.

This time the album is produced by RedOne, the Moroccan producer best known for his work with Lady Gaga, whose studio is in Tétouan. RedOne and his team – the songs sound like they were written by committee – knock off a series of epic techno anthems which in their own terms are effective enough. Once or twice the techno bulldozer slows down, as in ‘Dima Labess’, but the best songs are the trio of tracks for which RedOne and gang step out of the way, notably ‘Elle Est Partie,’ a sly, nostalgic chanson almost up with Khaled’s best. ‘Andalucia’ is, as the title suggests, a flamenco-lite track with enjoyably swooning strings. Then we are back to the Euro anthems of the RedOne juggernaut. It seems you can teach an old dog new tricks. But sometimes you wish you couldn’t.