- 1985-2003 Je joue de la guitare · 2002
- 1985-2003 Je joue de la guitare · 1996
- Les fourmis · 1998
- À Paradis City · 2015
- L'amour est sans pitié · 1990
- À Paradis City · 2015
- À Paradis City · 2015
- À Paradis City · 2015
- 1985-2003 Je joue de la guitare · 2005
- Le dôme · 1996
- À Paradis City · 2015
- L'étrange pays · 2019
- Le dôme · 1996
Essential Albums
- Mashing up nylon guitars with big beats and Franglais rap might not sound that outré in the internet age, but in 1996 Jean Leloup was the French Canadian answer to Beck. His third album houses some of his most inventive genre-splicing experiments: “La chambre” combines acoustic strums with hip-hop percussion, while the funky flows of “Le monde est à pleurer” sound like Chic making DIY rap. His playful touch is still evident, too, best shown by “Edgar”, a cheeky homage to Serge Gainsbourg’s “Cargo Culte”.
- To hear Jean Leloup on his second album is to witness a free-spirited rocker riffing on the beat of his own drum. The singer/guitarist sounds delightfully manic on the ska-punk romp "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde", and the springy rocker "Barcelone" bounces along with carnivalesque glee. But on the head-bobbing title track—a cynical take on lost love and late nights—he sings just above a whisper. The connecting thread is his enthralling whimsy as he takes us to the dark corners of his playfully twisted, infinitely curious mind.
Albums
- 2019
- 2015
- 2009
- 1998
- 1996
- 1989
Artist Playlists
Singles & EPs
Compilations
About Jean Leloup
Part Dylanesque busker, part Bowie-styled dandy, part Gainsbourgian provocateur, Jean Leloup has forged a singular path through Québécois rock since the late ’80s. Born Jean Leclerc in Sainte-Foy in 1961, he spent his childhood in Togo and Algiers before returning to Quebec as a teen in 1976—a harbinger of the wandering spirit he would embody as a recording artist. After honing his theatrical bonafides in the musical Starmania in the mid-’80s, Leclerc adopted the stage surname Leloup (French for “the wolf”) and made his first big splash with the house-inspired jam “1990”, a sort of francophone counterpart to Dee-Lite’s “Groove is in the Heart” steeped in ironic geopolitical critique. But on 1996’s Le Dôme, Leloup mastered a fluid fusion of folk, grunge and rap-inspired flows, while alternating between French verses and English chorus hooks on his signature serenade “I Lost My Baby”. Over several albums and decades, Leloup keeps following his madcap muse wherever it leads him—and when he strips it all down, as on the outdoor acoustic field recordings of 2019’s L’etrange pays, his eccentric personality and incisive storytelling resound all the more loudly.
- HOMETOWN
- Sainte-Foy, Quebec, Canada
- BORN
- 14 May 1961
- GENRE
- French Pop