« La Pieva ». Barbara Pravi knew this before writing the songs, and that is what she would name her second album. The Pievaor “the singer” in Serbian. A name given to his ancestor in 1750, a Gypsy woman who wandered in the mountains between Bosnia and Serbia, and whose passage was not missed by the villagers. The Pieva will subsequently become Piévic (“child of a singer”), the real surname of Barbara Pravi.
The Pieva is no longer a legend today. It has become an album. That of a woman who, like any good singer, experienced a lack of inspiration after the success of her hit “Voilà” – listened to more than 135 million times and thanks to which she will rank second at Eurovision in 2021 – and her first album We don’t lock up birds. “I thought I would never be able to write again. I didn’t even know what music I wanted to make,” the 31-year-old told 20 Minutes.
READ ALSO Thomas de Pourquery: “I feel like I’m coming out” So the singer takes up this word “Pieva”, explained by her grandfather at the beginning of his career 10 years ago, and uses it as a starting point for her second album. Unable to explain her origins to the world’s TVs during Eurovision, she takes the road to Serbia in 2023 accompanied by her 91-year-old grandfather to reach the village where part of her family still lives. And The Pieva is born. The album, but especially two songs about his roots, “Les Ruines” and “La Pieva (chez moi)”.
Barbara Pravi vs Success
On this new album, Barbara Pravi reconnects not only with her past, but also with herself, after the many upheavals in her life, linked to success. The project starts off with a bang with “Bravo”, a true ode to self-confidence. “Bravo for being, bravo for breathing, bravo for doing what you can to become what you want”, sings Barbara, who needed to write this song after realizing that her successes were, in the eyes of others, never enough. “We were second, they told me that it wasn’t enough. We were doing millions of streams, it wasn’t enough ” explained the singer in Daily. “I woke up one morning, I was super sad, and I thought to myself that the only thing I needed right now was to congratulate myself and be proud of myself.”
READ ALSO We discovered the singer Beabadoobee, protégé of Taylor SwiftIt is through this prism of intimacy that Barbara Pravi unfolds her lyrics. On “Maman”, the album’s second single, the singer delivers her malaise on piano and voice. “Maman, when will it stop, the feeling of being next door / Do I have the same heart as these people, or is it me who is out of order?” An introspection that she extends in “Vivante” and the excellent “Qui j’étais”, where Barbara swirls to a disco rhythm in the spiral of a tasteless success. “I no longer know why fire, money, glory, bodies and faces no longer have a story / I fall asleep in rooms without smells on the sheets / I no longer know who I am, remind me who I was before.” The singer also faces success in love. She explores the one to leave on the title “Antoine”, the one desired on the vibrant “Fantasme-moi”.
A critique of society
Barbara Pravi is also inspired by the world, the individualization of society, conflicts and wars, which are sources of inspiration for two songs on the album. First there is the UFO “Exist”, a frantic piece half spoken, half sung which intensifies with each measure as the word “Exist” repeats in a loop. Against a saturated soundtrack, Barbara Pravi – who calls herself “politicized in spite of herself” – tackles abuse to be able tofeaturing a megalomaniac who would do anything to feel like he exists. “I will make you wage war, with great antics, you are my little puppets, ridiculous little puppets. »
The singer chooses to express criticism one last time before the end of the album, on “Si ce monde est fou”: “We only see foreheads when we walk down the street / Shoulders that sag, bodies bent without audacity. And this crowd of solitude advances like soldiers, eyes in the phone and the world upside down.” From a capella, the Frenchwoman slides towards rock and saturation, helped by choirs, before returning to Serbian sounds, ready to return to the hills. “If this world is crazy, if it makes fun of me, I would go, I would go away, my heart filled with pain for having been weird.”
With The PievaBarbara Pravi delivers a more pop, more electronic album, with occasional rock outbursts (“L’Armure »). An album that is also more assertive, more raw than the previous one, on which Barbara still thrills with her intensity and the clarity of her words. The Pieva is poignant, intimate, calls for both travel and dance. A successful album. We say “Bravo”.
“La Pieva” is available on all platforms
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