Léo Ferré - Il n'y a plus rien (1973)

In contrast with another giant of the world of chanson, Jacques Brel, who navigated the gamut of human emotions and experiences, balancing humor, chagrin and joie de vivre, Léo Ferré tended to be tremendously serious, as only those believing themselves to be avatars of a higher form of art can be, which could be both his strong and weak suit. Even here, in one of his strongest outings, it is clear there is a somewhat stereotypical chanson à texte template framing the whole effort, where the texts, the orchestral backing, and the vocal declamations, are all placed at the service of grand and somewhat facile pronouncements about ART!, LIFE!, DEATH!, SEX!, POLITICS! ET CETERA!, working to upkeep an artiste maudit persona (that yet was somehow capable of enrolling orchestral forces for his numerous records...). However, there is also a well-aged savoir-faire and bravado in handling and combining those elements into an aesthetic whole, that forces all of those attention-seeking things to work in consonance; as well as an unflinching conviction about them that is able to push the whole thing into excess and thrive there - and that's what makes this one of those defining records in a genre that more than being listened to or enjoyed, are to be experienced. 

It's interesting then to find that, despite Scott Walker's explicit penchant in his beginnings for Brel as a songwriter (with which I generally concur; especially when it comes to the liveliness and acumen of his everyday poetic narratives, and the nimbleness of his melodic prosody), the more oppressive symphonic arrangements occasionally found in Ferré's work can seem to foreshadow Walker's later period. What's even more interesting, is whether that might causally reflect more the influence of Ferré's work on a broader musical tradition that Walker obviously drank from, or instead, like Jorge Luis Borges discussed about Kafka's 'precursors', the way Walker's towering oeuvre can reshape our perspective of artists that preceded him (even if on a very limited time scale here), whose work, beyond being its own thing, can get a new outlook by way of its retrospective link to future musical history, produced in reverse time - in this case, by sounding partly Walkeresque 'before' Walker, but only being perceivable as such, or having the musical perception of those traits differently highlighted, 'after' him. 

As these are so often matters where causal assumptions are empirically-challenged for lack of direct evidence, your choice of explanation in each case will probably reflect your preference for some artists over others more than any form of objective judgement; but either way, it's a line of reasoning that can make us question the general notion that the greatness of artists can or should be measured by their straightforward influence on future artistic production (which so often merely entails inspiring a parade of lackluster copycats), and give weight instead to the alternate conception that perhaps the best hallmark of the true greats is their radiating, physics-defying, potency of retroactively making the very past that brought them forth a more interesting place to revisit (with no risk of ever stepping on the wrong butterfly).