The problem is that straying from an original is not, in itself, an artistic act. What replaces it must still possess a sense of necessity, a tension, a sense of inevitability. And here, to our ears, these elements are simply not there.
‘Dumb’ was not merely a melody accompanied by lyrics that could simply be translated from one language to another. With Nirvana, everything rests on an almost miraculous balance between Kurt Cobain’s weariness, his voice, the harmonic simplicity, a melancholy that never quite seems to reveal itself fully, and that unique way of bringing out the violence lurking behind the gentleness.
In French, this balance disappears. The words suddenly become very prominent, almost demonstrative, where Cobain worked precisely within ambiguity and vagueness. What was murky becomes explicit. What seemed intimate becomes a speech. And what possessed a kind of painful nonchalance now seems much more contrived.
Hugo Jardin does, however, have a genuine musical background: having explored punk, poetry, mime and dance, he has for several years been developing a personal style blending chanson, pop and rock. His French adaptations of Nirvana songs are, moreover, not a recent whim: he was already releasing them during the Covid period.
Which is precisely what makes this cover even more frustrating. This isn’t some amateur butchering ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ at a Saturday-night karaoke session. Behind ‘Dumb (Idiot)’ lies a genuine artistic intention. Some media outlets have even hailed it as a successful reinterpretation, or even a deliberate ‘creative betrayal’. We hear something completely different.
Ideally, a cover version should achieve at least one of two things: make us rediscover the original, or make us momentarily forget it exists. Here, neither happens. On the contrary, the comparison with Nirvana becomes constant and cruel.
And this is perhaps where ‘Dumb (Idiot)’ fails most clearly: we can’t stop wanting to go back and listen to ‘Dumb’.
Translating Nirvana may have been an appealing idea on paper. But some songs resist translation because their language is not just English: their true language is a voice, an era, a sound, a fragility, a fluke.
Of course, one can take everything and make it one’s own. Transform everything. Betray everything. It is, in fact, one of the artist’s fundamental rights.
But that betrayal still needs to take us somewhere.
Here, it takes us straight back to Nirvana.
