After three years of absence since the success of his second album Infinity released in 2017, Oscar and the Wolf returns with the single James, promising a third album with summer vibes that the public, half confined-deconfined, would need!
Perhaps little known in France, Oscar and the Wolf has not demerited in the Benelux since 2014, date of release of his first album Entity, carried by the songs Strange Entity and Princes. The artist stands out for his attraction for fashion, light, taffeta, flashy, sparkling, as shown by his Instagram account both colorful and low in vain modern aesthetic of the "sadboi". Influenced by the pop anthems of recent years, Oscar and the Wolf displays a personality attached to universal themes and is a champion of a generation shattered by various contemporary issues but always attracted by the light of sunsets, as seems to depict the clip of "James" inspired by the Riviera aesthetic.
"James" as a symbol of love and freedom
It is precisely this aesthetic that jumps out in the clip of "James", where a group of friends rolls in a convertible, hands towards the sky, gaze drinking the horizon, dressed in vintage clothes far too big. This ideal of nostalgia makes Oscar and the Wolf and its dancers a bunch of teenagers straight out of a Truman Capote or Kérouac novel, with no purpose or destination other than their own freedom to enjoy the spectacle of nature. Roll "anywhere, out of the world" (Baudelaire, "Little poems in prose"). The romantic isotopy is nourished by ancient filters, the prism of man-nature and man-friendly nature. Only the car and the cigarette indicate a temporality, which is that of the spectator, since any young adult will recognize himself in this invitation to escape from the concrete world.
The atmosphere of the clip is reminiscent of the aesthetics of old films, poems at the water's edge recited by Belmondo in "Pierrot le Fou" or Brigitte Bardot in "And God Created Woman".
The idea of running on the Côte d'Azur, still a breeding ground for the romantic imagination of today's young people, is a component of "James", whose lyrics add a taste for the almost old-fashioned lyricism of teenage love.
Oscar and the Wolf may have been inspired by the lark mirror that is conformity to shape its clip, since chic suits replace bohemian overshirts under a sumptuous dome, dancers repeating the same choreography. The two sides of the same person, one at the water's edge, one confined under a bell, could speak to the viewer whose aftermath is made of government restrictions. The success of the clip of "James" is that it announces a personal birth for Oscar and the Wolf (James being the first name of the artist's nephew, born the day he recorded in a studio for the first time) and collective for the world that should find its freedom in this year 2021, year of release of the third album of the artist.
Thus, "James" is part of a wind of freedom specific to the current health situation, as the upcoming opportunity to join the airwaves, in every sense of the word!
