Didier Super

The first word that comes to mind for anyone who has ever heard the name of Olivier Haudegond aka Didier Super's music either on record or on-stage: provocation. Sheer provocation. Very few artists have managed to get signed on such labels as V2 or Universal with such an act. Imagine a blend of cynicism, irony, bad taste, insolence, rude aggressiveness, crudity and, one must admit, both bad music and bad singing. So what was it that made Super's indecent proposal so appealing that people wanted to hear him? The adrenalin rush coming up with the fear of being picked to go on-stage with Super and be played a fool? The joy of seeing other people picked up? to witness Super's incredible wit when it came to destroying someone's pride? Or was it the discovery of a third degree humor in the early 2000s? The answer lay in all of these propositions, plus, of course, the guarantee of a good laugh for anyone willing to hear a complete CD or sit through a complete set with an open mind. Three LPs were released between 2001 and 2008, the second of which was a revamped, a supposedly more listenable version of the first, including his anti-poodle anthem "Petit Caniche," but music was a secondary concern to Super who actually made it as unsettling as possible (grunts on bad synths, for most, with a little punk guitar edge sometimes — Super came from the punk scene), instead focusing on the shock tactics. For example, he could shoot videos of him singing "On Va Tous Crever" ("We're all gonna die") in front of a hospital, "Y'en a Marre des Pauvres" ("I'm so bored with the poor") in front of one of Paris' most expensive restaurants, or making Indian people say "Thank you Tsunami" in French to his camera. All in all, Super's recipe lay in "no-respect whatsoever" ethics, probably the kind of humor the early 21st century was lacking, appealing to those who read or had read Charlie Hebdo, Professeur Chauron's Hara-Kiri, left wing and anarchist pamphlets, or quite simply just dug punk under any form.