Favorites.

There are the eternal favorites, the ones from a youth that had no idea there was a hidden continent beyond whatever was on TV and radio: Beatles, Stones, Byrds, Kinks, Dylan, Neil Young, Love, Velvet Underground, Clash, Bowie, Beach Boys, Television…

There are the youthful favorites who were our contemporaries: Auteurs, Boo Radleys, Belle and Sebastian, Elliott Smith, Murat, Sufjan Stevens (though by the time he came along, we weren’t quite so young anymore)…

There are the favorites we missed by a few years but eventually caught up with: Smiths, La’s, Stone Roses, Pale Fountains, Pixies, Madness, XTC, Prefab Sprout, The House of Love, The Housemartins…

There are the soul favorites: Mayfield, Gaye, Hayes, Wonder, Parliament/Funkadelic…

There are the rap favorites: De La Soul, Public Enemy, A Tribe Called Quest, Outkast…

And then there are the favorites of more recent years. We probably don’t become attached to them with quite the same all-consuming passion we did at twenty, but they stay with us faithfully, some of them ever since the early 2000s.

Joe Henry—really an old hand—whose music, blissfully indifferent to trends and steeped in jazz, soul, blues, and folk, reached a kind of fulfillment around the turn of the twenty-first century.

The Clientele, with their autumnal languor and Lennon-esque sensitivity.

Jake Xerxes Fussell, making unadorned, ancestral folk.

Kurt Vile and his female counterpart, Courtney Barnett: coolness incarnate.

Woods, a direct bridge to the imagined sixties.

Bonny Light Horseman, folk musicians with a gift for perfect songs.

Hovvdy, a duo with one foot planted firmly in the ’90s.

Real Estate, pure indie pop with Byrds-inspired guitars.

The whole Proper Ornaments / Modern Nature / Penny Arcade / Ultimate Painting constellation: somewhere between the Velvet Underground, the Byrds, The White Album, and jazz (in Modern Nature’s case)—a remarkable bunch of English bands…

And speaking of the English, The Coral. The latest issue of Rock & Folk points out just how good these guys are. And damn right—they’re simply excellent, yet they remain far too little known. Their new album is another triumph, infused with soul and Jamaican music. An odd combination?

Not at all.

No, in terms of cultural impact, these songs will obviously never stand alongside Marley or Mayfield—because they had the right time and the right place. But if you judge them purely on musical terms, on the sheer pleasure of listening, they’re an absolute delight that only deepens with age. Here, you’d swear you were hearing an Impressions cover… but not quite. It’s British, it’s soulful, and it sounds exactly the way we like it: organic, unfussy, effortlessly classy.

Which is precisely why they’re favorites.

Point chouchous.

Il y a les chouchous éternels, ceux de la jeunesse qui ignorait qu’il y avait un continent caché au-delà de la programmation télé et radiophonique : Beatles, Stones, Byrds, Kinks, Dylan, Neil Young, Love, Velvet Underground, Clash, Bowie, Beach Boys, Television…

Il y a les chouchous de jeunesse, contemporains : Auteurs, Boo Radleys, Belle and Sebastian, Elliott Smith, Murat, Sufjan Stevens (pour lui on n’était plus si jeune…)…

Il y a les chouchous qu’on a loupés de quelques années, mais qu’on a bien rattrapés : Smiths, La’s, Stone Roses, Pale Fountains, Pixies, Madness, XTC, Prefab Sprout, The House of Love, The Housemartins…

Il y a les chouchous soul : Mayfield, Gaye, Hayes, Wonder, Parliament/Funkadelic…

Il y a les chouchous rap : De La Soul, Public Enemy, A Tribe Called Quest, Outkast…

Et puis il y a les chouchous de ces dernières années, auxquels on s’attache sans doute moins passionnément qu’à 20 ans, mais qui nous accompagnent fidèlement, parfois depuis le début des années 2000.

Joe Henry, en réalité un vieux de la vieille, dont la musique, qui se fout des modes, gorgée de jazz, de soul, de blues et de folk, a trouvé une forme d’accomplissement au tournant du XXIe siècle.

The Clientele et leur torpeur automnale à la sensibilité lennonienne.

Jake Xerxes Fussell, folk ancestral sans artifice.

Kurt Vile et son pendant féminin, Courtney Barnett, la coolitude incarnée.

Woods, pont direct avec les sixties fantasmées.

Bonny Light Horseman, folkeux aux chansons parfaites.

Hovvdy, duo avec un pied dans les 90s.

Real Estate, la pure indie pop aux guitares nourries chez les Byrds.

La galaxie Proper Ornaments, Modern Nature, Penny Arcade, Ultimate Painting : entre le Velvet, les Byrds, le Double Blanc et le jazz (Modern Nature), des Anglais épatants…

Et en parlant d’Anglais, The Coral. Le dernier Rock & Folk souligne à quel point ces mecs sont bons. Et bordel, oui, ils sont tout simplement excellents et restent trop confidentiels. Ils régalent à nouveau avec un nouvel album marqué par la soul et la musique jamaïcaine. Incongru ?

Hum, non, pas du tout. Si, en termes d’impact culturel, ces morceaux ne rejoindront évidemment jamais ceux de Marley ou de Mayfield (parce que, pour eux, c’était right time, right place), si l’on s’en tient au strict point de vue musical et au plaisir d’écoute, c’est un délice total qui mûrit au fil du temps. Ici, on jurerait entendre une reprise des Impressions… mais pas tout à fait, quand même. C’est british, c’est soul, ça sonne exactement comme on aime : organique, sans fioritures. La classe. Et chouchous, donc.