French Pop 1: The Astonvilla

Astonvilla is a French pop-rock oufit that caught our attention on our recent trip to France. We were stuck in our brother-in-law's home one rainy night and watching music videos on a local French TV channel when we caught Astonvilla's video. While we were entertained by the band's music and the clip, what struck most about the group was its name: Astonvilla.

In fact, the name was more interesting to us -- at first -- than their music or even the intrigueing music videowith its inexplicable tale about a girl who sees her imaginary doppelganger as she walks around an anonymous city.

Astonvilla is French, but named after a popular English professional soccer team called Aston Villa (except that the team is named after an actual place and spells its name as two words, whereas as the Gallic band writes the name as a single word.) Apparently, the band's members are fans of English football.

We imagine that if you're French (or American, like us), the name Aston Villa sounds kind of cool, which, actually, we think it does. We also imagine that it probably does not sound as cool to Brits, unless said Brits are fans of Aston Villa the soccer team, or the French band. At least, for the British, the name conjures a different image.

This is not the first time a band's name has been inspired by a foreign soccer club -- the British band St. Etienne named itself after the French foootie team of the same name. So call it a draw in terms of Anglo-Franco cross-national pop-culture referencing.

Oh, but what about Astonvilla's music, you ask? It's solid, serviceable pop rock, played with an indie 90's flavor and sung in French. It's not quite our cup of tea, musically speaking, but we'd listen to their album on our next cruise down the highway from Paris to Dijon. Check out the band's Web site official site. If you'll be in Paris in a couple of months, you can catch Astonvilla at Elysee-Montmartre on Nov. 29.

Essential Linkage

Le site officiel du groupe Astonvilla

Posted by Robsam at September 15, 2005 11:35 PM