Jacques Brel - Quinze Ans D'amour (1988)

This 20-track collection from Barcley compiles every one of Jacques Brel's most popular songs, all in their most famous versions. From his first hit "Quand On N'a Que l'Amour" to early peaks like "La Valse à Mille Temps," "Les Vieux," and "Mathilde," Quinze Ans d'Amour picks the best of his early material, with only one song recorded after 1968.
David Keymer:
Singer-songwriter Jacques Brel died in 1979 at the age of 49. He was, and remains, one of the greatest and most popular of French troubadours. His music had already made its way to our country in the hit musical review, Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris (1968) but the translation didn’t do him a favor, transformed his very French boulevardier style into late sixties American folk pop. Whatever Brel was, he was never a Peter, a Paul or a Mary. The review simply waters down the theatricality and intensity of his literate, emotional, ultimately intellectual take on love, growth, family and land, the act(s) of living. My advice to those who haven’t listened to him directly is to do so.
This is one of several anthology albums to consider, no better or worse than many others. Brel recorded many of his hits several times over. You will find on this album versions of “Ne Me Quitte Pas” (in English, “If You Go Away”), probably his best known composition, but this is not his best recording of it; “La Valse a Mille Temps” (“The Waltz a Thousand Times”: Brel liked waltzes and recorded several waltz tempo pieces, of which this is the cleverest, bearing comparison to Jane Olivor’s “The Big Parade,” both of them patter songs sung at an accelerating tempo as the piece progresses); “Les Flamandes” (“Flemish Women”); ”La Chanson des Vieux Amants” (great lyrics about old, old lovers); “Quand On N’a Que l’Amour” (“When You Only Have Love”); and “La Quete,” the French remake of “The Impossible Dream” from Man of La Mancha (Brel played Quixote in the French version in 1968).The album also includes the definitive version of “J’Arrive,” incredibly dramatic, almost impossible to imagine sung by anyone but a Frenchman –well, actually, Flemish, and born in Brussels. I have listened to a fair number of French singers –not all, or even most, but enough to distinguish among them. Brel is high in the pantheon, nestled there with Charles Aznavour (I like Brel more), Piaf, Trenet.
This music is the Real Thing, romantic and dramatic tunes, poetic, intelligent, moving lyrics, and great performances by orchestra and singer. Brel’s work is what pop music aspires to be sometimes but seldom reaches –and he achieved it time after time! Brel. R.I.P., Jacky.