Plastic punk

Some awesome geek moves from the science of phonetics, as applied to the new wave punk classic ‘√áa Plane Pour Moi’ previously and falsely believed to have been sung by Plastic Bertrand.

From the AV Club report:

A staple of any new-wave dance night (ask a white person), “Ca Plane Pour Moi” made a chart-stopping star out of Belgian singer Plastic Bertrand (né Roger Jouret) and provided him with his most lasting legacy—except an expert linguist has just proved that Bertrand didn’t actually sing on his most famous record. The battle over “Ca Plane Pour Moi” has been brewing for four years now, stemming from a 2006 lawsuit involving original producer Lou Deprijck, who released his own version of the single under the marketing claim that he was the “original voice.” At the time, Deprijck found himself sued by record label AMC.

As a result, a panel of experts was appointed to study the track, and today a linguist announced that, after three months of study, during which he compared the original to Deprijck’s 2006 version, he had determined that ‚Äúthe way the phrases end on each record show that the song could only have been sung by a Ch’ti‚Äîotherwise known as someone from the Picard region of France. It could therefore not have been Plastic Bertrand‚Äîwho was born in Brussels‚Äîand was surely Monsieur Deprijck.‚Äù So it’s been settled: Plastic Bertrand was the Milli Vanilli of the punk era.

Link to AV Club on the fake Plastic Bertrand (via @sophiescott).