Mastodawn

Vulgaires Machins – Compter les corps (2006, Canada)

Our next spotlight is on number 1110 on The List, submitted by @Yuki.

With this moody af album cover and a title that translates to “Counting The Bodies”, if you don’t already know this Québécois band, you will likely be surprised when hitting play. Essentially, think Blink 182 but if they were way more mature, had dark socially conscious lyrics, and, you know, sang in French.

Formed in 1995, the Vulgaires Machins album we look at here is the punk rock quartet’s 5th studio LP, with a lineup of Guillaume Beauregard (vocals, guitar), Marie-Eve Roy (vocals, guitar, keyboard), Maxime Beauregard (bass), and Patrick Landry (drums). My high school French has sadly disintegrated nearly completely, but I believe the lyrics on this one touch on topics such as pollution, drug decriminalization, mental health, societal collapse, TV addiction (reminder this was released 20 years ago), religion, and fake punks.

Though the person behind the drum kit has since switched to Pat Sayers, Vulgaires Machins is still going strong – and still sounding great! The band put out their 10th album, Contempler l’abîme, at the end of 2025, and, following a just-completed mini tour in France, will be touring their home province of Québec this March and April. Also, keep an eye out for an upcoming documentary on the history of Vulgaires Machins and their impact on the Québec music scene. The film was successfully crowdfunded back in 2024 and is expected to be released late this year or early 2027.

Btw, keeners may have noticed the number of this album is quite a bit higher than we’ve seen in previous spotlights, and maybe don’t remember seeing this album on The List before. We just recently added about 160(!) albums to The List, around 30 of which are from Québécois artists such as this one. Thanks to Yuki for recognizing that gap we had regarding Francophone albums, I’m looking forward to spotlighting these all!

#Canada #Francophone #ListenToThis #music #musicDiscovery #popPunk #punkRock #Quebec #Quebecois #VulgairesMachins