Daniel Balavoine: Google doodle honors French singer, songwriter, and activist

The present Doodle observes French singer, songwriter, and activist Daniel Balavoine, an rebellious yet sensitive champion of popular music and human rights.

On this day in 1978, Balavoine released his third album “Le Chanteur” (“The Singer”), an emotional reflection on the preciousness of life that skyrocketed his career.

Daniel Balavoine was born on February 5, 1952, in Alençon, France. In his teens, he fought passionately for social causes with energy he started to channel into music in 1970.

In spite of the fact that his initial musical endeavors flew under the radar of mainstream achievement, Balavoine’s career started to get steam when Swiss pop star Patrick Juvet featured him on one of his albums.

In 1975, Balavoine kept on gathering speed with the release of his debut solo album “De Vous à Elle en Passant Par Moi” (“From You to Her Through Me”). A televised performance in 1977 of one of his sophomore album’s hit songs, “Lady Marlène,” captivated French pop icon Michel Berger, who dispatched Balavoine to play Johnny Rockfort in his cyberpunk rock drama “Starmania.” The role was a smash hit that set up for Balavoine to become an successful innovator of French electronic pop.

In 1980, he released a hit album, “Un Autre Monde” (“Another World”), featuring a portion of his most famous songs, for example, “Je Ne Suis Pas un Héros” (“I’m not a Hero”), “Mon Fils, ma Bataille” (“My Son, My Battle”), and “La Vie ne M’Apprend Rien” (“Life Teaches me Nothing”).

In that very year, on TV he gave a call to action to politician François Mitterrand with a test to help out the young. This was a pivotal turning point for Balavoine’s legacy as a musician, however a vocal activist for the community and symbol for France’s future.

Notwithstanding the more than 20 million records he sold, Balavoine was a devoted humanitarian. He zeroed in quite a bit of his endeavors on improving the lives of residents in remote villages of the African Sahara, particularly in Mali, where he planned to supervise the installation of water pumps near the route of the 1986 Paris-Dakar rally car race.

Balavoine disastrously lost his life during this trip, yet his heritage has lived on. That very year, Balavoine’s final album “Sauver L’Amour” (“Save Love”) won a posthumous Victoire de la Musique award, one of French music’s highest honors.

Here’s to you, Daniel Balavoine!