How MySpace, Bad Decisions, and Two Co-Conspirators Built the "Boumeur I" Demos

I suppose I should begin by acknowledging the primary culprit: MySpace.

Before the digital world became a vast, polished shopping mall designed to monitor your spending habits and mental decline, there was MySpace. It was a chaotic, blinking, aesthetically offensive swamp of glitter GIFs and amateur photography—the perfect petri dish for the emotionally stunted and the musically ambitious. It was where souls, temporarily deluded enough to believe they had something profound to share, bumped into each other and created things.

In my case, it brought me Alexandre Laderoute and Aurélie. Two people whose existence validated my early, terrible song ideas. This EP, "Boumeur I," is less a work of art and more the sonic residue of that fleeting, necessary online contact. It's a collection of demos, the musical equivalent of a poorly kept diary, recorded between 2009 and 2012 when I still thought orchestral arrangements could mask social awkwardness.

This is the story of how it happened. Please try not to enjoy it too much.

1. ÉCHOS DE VÉRITÉ

Every artistic journey begins with a moment of pure, blinding plagiarism. Mine arrived in 2008 via VH1. I saw The Last Shadow Puppets’ "Standing Next to Me"—all lush strings and magnificent, arrogant swagger—and immediately understood that I had to steal the essence of it. Not the notes, just the inherent superiority.

The song that resulted, "ÉCHOS DE VÉRITÉ," became the first original sin of the "Boumeur" project.

The crucial next step was finding a voice that sounded less like my own muttered internal monologue. MySpace, in its infinite tackiness, provided Alexandre Laderoute. He listened to my "musings," which were essentially frantic pleas for collaboration, and together we sculpted this track. By "sculpted," I mean I forced an ill-fitting Baroque Pop suit onto a simple indie tune, complete with a harpsichord nod to my initial moment of theft. Alex, bless his collaborative spirit, pretended this was a good idea.

2. UNE HISTOIRE D'AMOUR IN A NUTSHELL

My mother, a woman who treats the acquisition of consumer electronics like a diplomatic mission, took me to a bookstore for new earphones in 2009. While performing the crucial testing phase, The Beatles’ "Ticket to Ride" started playing directly into my skull. Simultaneously, a ghostly Vietnamese traditional song drifted in from the store's background music.

It was an audio collision that should have caused a mild headache, but instead, it generated the concept for "UNE HISTOIRE D'AMOUR IN A NUTSHELL."

The drums mimic the 50s-60s pop spirit of The Beatles, but the track pivots dramatically into a Vọng cổ style interlude. A Vietnamese interlude in an orchestral pop song? It was a reckless, beautiful move that both Alex and Aurélie endorsed, suggesting a worrying lack of critical judgment on their part. My favorite part is the ending, a clumsy harmonization I executed, and in my delusion, I thought it was "really clever." An early lesson: mediocrity is often indistinguishable from genius when viewed through one’s own lens.

3. L'ÉTÉ FROID

I genuinely have no recollection of writing "L'ÉTÉ FROID." It simply exists, a mild-mannered ghost of my early songwriting style. It captures a moment when I was still trying to determine what kind of misery I wanted to inflict on the world.

Sometimes I listen to it and wonder if I'm still capable of such pure, aimless creation, or if I’ve become too self-aware to be genuinely good at anything. The older tunes hold a "soft spot" in my heart, which is a terrible, sentimental phrase for admitting that you cling to past versions of yourself because the present one is simply unbearable.

4. RÉCIT DE GUERRE

I was, for a long time, vehemently anti-Beatles. My first guitar teacher, my mother, taught me a classical style completely incompatible with the existential rage of Green Day and the pop sheen of McFly—the only bands that mattered when you’re twelve and filled with justifiable contempt for the world.

My conversion happened in high school, after being reluctantly drafted into friendship with a "die-hard" Beatles fanatic. I learned their songs out of necessity. After the 2008 Tet holiday, something simply clicked. The sheer, crushing inevitability of competence had set in.

That's when "RÉCIT DE GUERRE" was born. It was initially an unsubtle re-imagining of The Beatles' "Girl," which I had to frantically revise during the project to make it slightly less transparently derivative. More importantly, this track introduced Aurélie as a vocalist. Alex suggested her. I was, naturally, hesitant—I prefer my collaborations to remain tightly controlled catastrophes. But her voice arrived, and suddenly, she was "integral." Just like that. Collaboration, it turns out, is simply the process of learning to accept other people's excellent ideas.

5. CHERCHE L'AMOUR (LOOKING FOR LOVE)

We kicked off the "Boumeur" project with a cover—a sure sign that the well of original misery had temporarily run dry. We chose "CHERCHE L'AMOUR," a rare early track by The Carpenters.

It was a brilliant maneuver: start with something obscure and charming to distract from the fact that you’re still waiting for inspiration. The arrangement, of course, was inspired by—you guessed it—The Last Shadow Puppets. It’s comforting, in a way, to realize that even as you pretend to evolve musically, you’re still drawn to the same well-executed sound you encountered years ago. The Carpenters remain a cornerstone of my musical journey, which is a polite way of saying they’re the only thing that makes me feel vaguely stable in an unstable world.

6. MIRAGE D'AMOUR

This track, "MIRAGE D'AMOUR," nearly broke the whole fragile structure. It appeared late in the process, and Alex and Aurélie immediately registered their complaint: it was too soft, too Southern European. It lacked the proper "dark and cold tones" we had envisioned.

They were right. My little brother, a relentless source of environmental noise pollution, had been playing nothing but oldies and indie music from Greece and Italy. My tastes had been forcibly evolved. The song, originally simple, became a softer, more delicate thing. I even had to modulate the key to ensure their vocal ranges "complemented" each other. A technical fix for an emotional betrayal.

The project is, predictably, stalled. There are more demos—more pieces of evidence I will eventually have to compile and release. But for now, this is "Boumeur I." Six tracks that prove that even the most detached, existentially troubled adolescent can occasionally manage to connect with others and produce something that sounds slightly better than silence.

And for that, MySpace, Alex, and Aurélie, you have my—ahem—grudging, non-mushy thanks.