RFI Musique looks at the controversy surrounding the release of the five Marquises songs which, in his lifetime, Brel preferred to leave on the shelf:

Is it right to raise singers from the dead without their permission? The question is one which still divides public opinion every time a posthumous release hits record stores. And when the debate concerns an artist of the stature of Brel, the controversy is guaranteed to run and run.

La cathédrale, L’amour est mort, Mai 40, Avec élégance and Sans exigence, the five songs Barclay recently plucked from record company archives had initially been destined to be included on Brel's last album, Les Marquises. But Brel had not been entirely happy with the songs. So when Barclay (owners of the copyright on the songs) and the Brel Foundation justified the songs' release on the symbolic date of the singer's 25th anniversary, there was a huge outcry that " Le Grand Jacques's" final wishes had not been respected. Further fuel was added to the debate when Pascal Nègre, director of Barclay's 'mother' label, Universal, revealed the existence of "a letter Brel sent to Eddie Barclay*" which essentially declared, "Don't release anything without my authorisation!"

The songs appear to be more rough drafts than finished material - although they are obviously rough drafts of a masterly quality. But many of Brel's former collaborators such as Jean Corti admit "there's something not quite right about them." Brel's former accordion player does concede that "the Brel family were right in insisting on the release because there's no doubt that the music and the lyrics are good and it will obviously make a lot of fans happy."

However, the problem is that the Universal venture appears to be motivated more by commercial concerns than cultural or philanthropic ones. Two of the songs in question had already been 'released' at the "Brel, le droit de rêver" exhibition in Brussels (thus becoming potentially broadcastable via other means and representing a loss of income for Universal, already at war against free downloads on the Internet). Perhaps the moral of the story lies in one of Brel'sown songs? "Faut vous dire Monsieur/Que chez ces gens-là/On ne cause pas Monsieur/On ne cause pas/On compte!" ("Let me tell you, sir, Those people they don't talk, sir, they don't talk, they count!")