Sunday, November 23, 2008

Stranger in the 70s - The Popularity of Windswept Pianists

Relax and enjoy the warm tones of Richard Clayderman's "Ballade Pour Adeline" as he floats through Paris on the back of a flatbed truck playing the piano and staring at you like a hungry dog.

Every now and then an anomaly appears in the record charts that just defies description. French pianist Richard Clayderman is one of those anomalies. His first single, proudly displayed in this post, sold 22 million copies in 38 countries in 1976. Since then he has sold upwards of 90 million records. Not bad for a former session musician.

There was an untapped market in 1976 for what I can only describe as middle class foreplay music. In terms of foreplay music, he was no Barry White. he wasn't even Mantovani (although Mantovani's influence on White's string arrangements is blatant), he was a handsome, safe French guy with a soft-fingered approach to love that thirty-something women could dig, and bachelors with black leather and chromed steel tubing furniture in their pads could use to lure the demure into the mood. I mean, look at him. The guy just oozes risk-free romance.

Having said all that, he's still enormously popular in South East Asia, so maybe I'm painting a incorrect picture, but back then, it was all Mateus red wine and whispered conversations in front of the gas fire on a cold winter night before Clayderman finally brings you to a point where you simply have to slip into something more... comfortable.

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