BOB SINCLAR - Cerrone By Bob Sinclar

Who is Bob Sinclar? According to his official web site, Bob is a spy, an international playboy, a mercenary, a hardcore porn star, and he even taught John Travolta to dance! More seriously, Bob Sinclar is the alter ego of Parisian DJ Chris The French Kiss, born Christophe Le Friant, a man with a passion for seventies disco and James Bond-like characters. The man, behind a string of hits including Gymtonic, The Ghetto and, more recently, I Feel For You, is one of the founder of seminal French label Yellow Productions, with DJ Yellow, aka Alan Ho, releasing albums by Dimitri From Paris, Kid Loco, Silent Poet or Sinclar himself, and has been at the centre of the French revival alongside Daft Punk and Etienne De Crecy.
Cerrone, on the other hand, made his mark during the seventies, with pioneering records, including Love I C Minor, which was, more or less, a blue print for the disco area yet to come, Je Suis Music or Supernature. By the end of the seventies, the prolific Cerrone had become synonymous with the ‘beauf’ culture, a rather derogatory term for the French lower working class, and, although he is nowadays sampled by the biggest DJs, his fall from grace with the public hasn’t really stopped since. As one of the major names on the disco revival scene, it is no surprise to see Sinclar grabbing the opportunity to dig up some of Cerrone’s classic dance floor moments and collate them on an album.
Cerrone By Bob Sinclar is more than a retrospective of Cerrone’s career or a remix project. Although some of the tracks included here have benefited of a light facelift (Major Sea, Striptease, Love Is The Answer and Roller Coaster), most of them are actually presented in their original version. Spanning Cerrone’s three most creative years, between 1976’s Love In C Minor and 1979’s Angelina, this album is a refreshing look back at some of the most exiting disco tracks ever released. From the Hispanic waves of Revelacion and the tribal percussions of Kongas Fun to the electro freak-parade of Supernature or the pre-Balearic Look For Love, cleverly melted over Sinclar’s own Feel For You, Le Friant gathers some amazing beats, on which luscious strings and powerful horn sections compete with funky guitars, electrifying pianos and sexy vocals. Highlights include the beautiful Love In C Minor, Cerrone’s Paradise and Living On Love, as well as the seminal Look For Love and Supernature. To complement this collection, the album also includes a Sinclar-like reworking of Give Me Love and a rather curious, if dispensable, hip-hop version of Supernature, complete with rap.
With this album, Sinclar pays a flamboyant homage to the man who has obviously been one of his main sources of inspiration over the years. Without Cerrone, there wouldn’t be a Bob Sinclar today. Over the recent years, the airwaves and charts all over Europe have resonated to the sound of Daft Punk, Sinclar or Modjo, and this only seems justice that one of them pays tribute to the man who had the French Touch twenty years before them.