The start of this year's pursuit of "voices of women" for the iPod has already blessed me with some remarkable finds, unknowns in my world whose CDs have been in sales and bought by whim.
A new one raised me right out of tired blues as I made my way home from the Factory, where little of today's African news was cheery. Searching for the right word for Julie Zenatti's voice, I found it in somebody else's brief notes on 'Fragile' (2000; Amazon Fr.): crystalline.
 Rap & hip-hop are rarely my thing, but might be added to my tastes if there's more like the amusing duo Passi does with Julie on 'Le Couloir de la Vie'. Other songs are melancholy, uplifting or both.
The girl can sometimes surprise with the power of that voice and there are two or three fine orchestral arrangements performed by the Budapest Symphony Orchestra. (More and more these days, in the music industry and film alike, I see producers employing fine musicians from the other side of what used to be the Iron Curtain, presumably because they come cheaper than west European performers.)
My only disappointment about a varied album without a dud song was that only one, 'Si Je M'en Sors', was by Julie herself, but she was still but a much younger woman than sometimes she sounds when she made 'Fragile', and turned 23 this month (bio at TV5, Fr).
Both voice and name passed me by because I didn't see 'Notre Dame de Paris' (official site), the musical that several of my friends were raving about four years ago. Julie Zenatti is already a talent with a lot of promise.
Swept out of commuter hell by this first record (and with ears wide open for her later one, 'Dans les yeux d'un autre'), I again twice experienced that little oddity about travelling with a headful of music. Eye contact.
The Paris underground is no different from others: eye contact between strangers is generally fleeting, often furtive, usually swiftly averted.
But not when you've got earphones in. It frequently happens then that you see an interesting or attractive face, or both, a gaze is met but this time it's held, each party quite leisurely about it, not shy or embarrassed or feeling intrusive or intruded on. And smiles are more easily exchanged between strangers.
I'm sure other people, long used to Walkmans, have noticed this long before I did. It could be that music, like fine weather, relaxes people, makes them feel less vulnerable and uptight. But it also happens when only one of the gazers is "tuned in" ... or out. What's the psychology behind it?
I spotted no fewer than three iPods today in one crowded Métro carriage. They must be selling fast. I've not yet tried the "Let's swap music" game that some people already play, simply plugging your earphones into somebody else's listening and vice versa for a while, but I've seen it happen. With mixed results...
10:32:27 PM link 
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