Pascal Obispo

Pascal Obispo, son of Max Obispo (a former Bordeaux Girondins football player of Basque origin) and Nicole Guérin (originally from Angers), was born on 8 January 1965 in Bergerac. After the divorce of his parents in 1978, he was raised by his mother, who decided to settle in Rennes. His father Max gained some notoriety by publishing two books, one on football, and Le Sable d'Ararat in 2010, a novel born from a meeting with the Armenian Minister of Culture Hasmik Boghossian when he discovers the similarities between the Armenian and Basque languages.

Pascal Obispo started singing in 1980. He got his first record deal in 1990. The record deal was Le long du fleuve. Some of his most famous songs are "Plus que tout au monde", "Laurelenn", "Tombé pour elle", "L'important c'est d'aimer", "Personne" and "Fan".

With his 2007 release of Les Fleurs du Bien (a play on Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du mal) he makes allusions to Rosa Parks, Pablo Picasso and others. He is also well known for his various escapades, his unconservative behavior, his haircut, etc. His name is an anagram of painter Pablo Picasso's name.

Obispo used his popularity to help with charity work and particularly for fighting the spread of HIV/AIDS. He has worked with many other well-known artists such as Jean-Jacques Goldman, Florent Pagny, Johnny Hallyday, Patricia Kaas, Amel Bent, and Natasha St-Pier.

In the beginning of the 1980s Rennes was one of the cities of rock in France. While studying at the Lycée Émile-Zola, Pascal found his passion for music, after discovering the group The Cure in rehearsal next to the basketball court where he was playing. He also fell in love with the Rennes rock group Marquis de Sade.

In 1983, while he was in Terminale interne at the free institution of Combrée, he created the group Words Of Goethe with friends from his former high school in Rennes (notably the lyricist Alain Gaudiche). After his military service, between January and August 1986, he was the bassist of the new wave group Evening Legions.

In 1988, he joined the new wave group Senso, which consisted of the members Frank Darcel (a former member of the Marquis de Sade group) and Frédéric Renaud. Originally a bass player, Pascal later became the singer of the project.

At the turn of the 1990s, the Senso group prepared a first album but, after discussion, decided to make it Pascal Obispo's first solo album. The disc, entitled Le Long du Fleuve, was released in 1990 by EMI with songs written by Franck Darcel, and supported by the single Les avions se souvenir. The album went unnoticed.

In 1991, Pascal Obispo signed his first artist contract with Epic and published his second album (Plus que tout au monde) in 1992, which met with real success thanks to the single of the same name and the title Tu vas me manquer, which placed 16th in the Top 50.

At the end of 1994, he released the album Un jour comme today, confirming his success with titles like Tombé pour elle and Tu compliques tout, and revealing the influence of Michel Polnareff (from whom he took over Holidays) and the Beatles. The album sold over 500,000 copies. ...

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