Yoann Lemoine: Still in his Golden Age
/A man with a brilliantly trimmed beard wearing a black baseball cap. That imagery points to Yoann Lemoine, better known by his stage name “Woodkid.” He’s a French musician who excels in making chamber pop music. He was born in 1983 in central-eastern France. He is also a graphic designer and a director for music videos, in which some of the notable artists he’s worked with include Taylor Swift, Katy Perry, and Harry Styles, among others.
Yoann worked with different artists for a while. He eventually came out with his first album, The Golden Age, in 2013. Some tracks were previously released as a single EP in 2011; “Iron” was the only one to make it to the full release.
Chamber pop is a genre that combines pop or rock with classical music, typically featuring string and brass instruments as well as pianos. Dynamic shifts to create dramatic listening experiences are a common trend in the genre, and it’s definitely present in Woodkid’s work. I find that it creates an almost surreal tone, as if it’s the sound from a vivid dream.
His lyrics are very solid, too. He’s the lead singer in all his songs, and despite having a noticeably heavy French accent, his English singing is clearly understandable. A lot of his work is deeply emotional and based around his prior life experiences. They deal with topics like relationships with the formation and separation of couples, growing up and leaving childhood, depression, and other heavy themes.
Yoann Lemoine performing at the “Melt! Festival” in 2013. Photo by Henry Laurisch.
I found out about Woodkid through an online music forum, where one user recommended “The Great Escape,” a song from the first album. At that time, The Golden Age was his only studio release aside from the Desierto movie soundtrack. His latest one, S16, had only been announced.
For a while, my favourite song of his was “The Great Escape,” which starts slow and quickly speeds up. It’s about finding freedom from problems and meeting with a romantic partner. Yoann himself is openly gay, which makes a lot of his songs about romance (including this one) much more personal for those who can relate. In a 2017 radio interview with Têtu, he talks about “the desire to build one’s identity as one wishes.”
One of my other favourites from that album is “I Love You,” which is more of a pop song with the same orchestral feel as the others. It sounds unique, with a scream sound acting in sync with the bass. The lyrics are emotional; it’s about lovers drifting apart in a one-sided relationship.
Like my previous blog where I talked about Avenged Sevenfold’s Life Is But a Dream, there was a seven-year gap between The Golden Age and S16. Like his first album, Woodkid released a few singles leading up to the release to build hype. There was even an ARG (alternate reality game) website called Adaptive Minerals, with cryptic details about the new tracks. I didn’t follow along with it myself, but I paid attention to what other people discovered as more content was gradually added.
As someone who’s been a Woodkid fan for several years, I want to gush about his music. “Run Boy Run” is the second track from The Golden Age, and it’s arguably one of his most popular songs. It was featured in TV commercials and the trailer for Dying Light, as well as the film adaptation of Divergent. The lyrics are simple yet catchy and the pace is rapid, but it’s ultimately a message about pressing on through hardship. He also wrote a song called “Guns for Hire” for Arcane, a Netflix show based on the popular video game League of Legends.
S16 is much like The Golden Age. It’s more of the same style of music, but the production value is higher due to his years of experience. It was released in 2020, and I picked up a CD copy from a record store soon after. The first track, “Goliath,” is my favourite from this album. It has a music video with very compelling imagery surrounding the idea of the relationship between individual people and the figurative monster created through excessive industrialisation.
Woodkid, “Goliath,” 2020.
My opinion about the first track being good doesn’t discredit the rest of S16, though. It’s like a continuation of his first album, where he channels his life experiences and personal struggles to make a very compelling narrative.
Ratings weren’t everything for Woodkid when the album was in production. The sudden success of The Golden Age left him with the problem of living up to expectations, which might have been why the gap between releases was so long.
In a 2020 interview with NBHAP (Nothing But Hope And Passion) when discussing his initial success, he said, “I had to step away from the idea that success is necessarily something you can count with numbers. I had to realize that it also is something you can feel intimately without being definable. It can be about pride, about creative accomplishment or about joy you can have with many things in your life. And I had lost this joy for some time after my massive success. For that reason, I needed time to redefine my standards.”
I’m a huge Woodkid fan, that’s obvious enough. I find his music to be a refreshing take on chamber pop, and I hope more attention will come his way in the future. Whether he collaborates with more artists or goes solo, I’m looking forward to hearing more from him.
Hey, it’s Lucas. I’m a student from Canada who’s just a little too into heavy metal and video games. Thankfully, one of those is useful for this blog. I’m an avid fan of cats (yes, I will pet them if I can) and a bird lover, too. I love a good plot twist, so I especially love it when artists take an unexpected turn with their work. You can expect to hear about rock, metal, or punk when you read my posts. Remember: it’s not about the blog, but the blogger behind it.
