Summary
(Cover credit: @justice on Facebook)
Cross Album: The New Rock Style
Picture this: It’s June 2007. You don’t discover new music through Spotify’s algorithm, but by browsing MySpace page by page. A big flip phone is bulging out of your jeans pocket because the first iPhone isn’t coming out until the end of the month.
If you go see electronic music live, you have a 99% chance of hearing linear, repetitive, progressive music. It will be cut out for the dancefloor, so that you know at what rhythm your foot should tap the floor. It will most likely be played by a DJ that you will barely notice, hidden behind his turntables. Because the center of attention, in electronic music, is electronic music. Militant music that advocates anonymity. Needless to say, for 99% of DJs, clothing style is the least of their worries.
It is in this world that two young French people arrive and play this:
The turntables and synths are there, but the music and the atmosphere are completely different. It's less linear, more alive, more violent. So violent that the first few times they play their first single "Waters of Nazareth", sound engineers think it's a crackling sound from the speakers and come to check the equipment.
To this music, we don't dance by tapping our feet, we headbang. We jump around. We do pogos and slams. We sing the tunes even when there are no words. We scream.
A new electro that this sentence sums up perfectly (timecode preset to 4:48):
The new rock'n'roll.
Behind their wall of Marshall speakers (dummy and empty for their transport but the decibels come from elsewhere and are very present), the group throws and breaks synths in the middle of the concert. They finish the latter with a remix of “Master of Puppets” by Metallica. Women ask them to sign autographs on their chests. The list can go on but you get the idea: it is difficult to do less rock'n'roll.
When they started out in 2003, Xavier and Gaspard wanted to rediscover this rock energy. A universe that had been stuck to their skin for years. The first album that Gaspard bought was In Utero (in cassette form), by the grunge band Nirvana. Xavier loves the Strokes. Graphic designers by training, they share with their friend So Me an attraction to hard rock album covers, hence the aesthetic of the single Waters of Nazareth, released in 2005:
So Me draws this organ in reference to the one heard in the break of the song. He digs the ecclesiastical track and transforms the “T” of Justice into a cross, then he makes it an eternal symbol for the group by drawing the iconic cover of the first album, without a name but often called “cross”:
So Me, Xavier and Gaspard wanted a clean, simple cover with a strong symbol. Like Dark Side of The Moon by the rock group Pink Floyd.
Like this musical break with the electronic scene, Xavier and Gaspard create a stylistic break that is just as rock'n'roll: no question of disappearing behind a plain t-shirt, it will be a strong look, like what they like to wear and which seems logical with such a punk approach to electro.
When performing, they often wear black, gray and white. Slim jeans, not to say skinny, ostentatious belts, silver chains, tattoos (imitated by their fans who also often dressed like them - I plead guilty to this second point), Ray Bans and, of course, leather jackets. They first find them in thrift stores, then Xavier gets his kit from Dior. A house for which they will compose a show music from a model that is lying in their drawers. Which already shows their affinity with the world of fashion, unusual for electro producers.
This music would later be released in four parts under the title “Planisphère”.
Surface to Air, the creative studio behind the iconic We Are Your Friends video (a remix that made the band famous), also collaborated with Justice by creating two jackets in April 2008. One like the ones Gaspard wears, the other like Xavier's, to the great delight of fans who can get their hands on them (of which I'm not one, but I've since dried my tears).
More recently, we can mention the collaboration with Schott which resulted in an instant sell-out (sob).
Like the cross, the leather jacket became such a strong symbol for the band that fans complained when they didn't wear one in concert. An anecdote that they would tell to the media MixMag, about one of the rare lives to which they wore denim jackets at that time.
The place of leather in their scenography recalls that of the Alive 2007 concert by Daft Punk, the other French UFO of electronic music.
It was also Paul Hahn, a former film set designer who worked with Daft Punk, who created the decor for Justice's first concert in 2007.
You may have noticed that Gaspard also wore a lot of rock band t-shirts. A collection that he feeds by eye and not by ear, because he chooses them solely for their aesthetics, as a true lover of maximalist typography and strong illustrations. He will specify in several interviews that he has not even listened to the music for some of them.
He will also tell that he likes to wear T-shirts displaying words that appear in the band's titles. For example, a T-shirt of the band "Genesis" in reference to the first song of the album Cross. Of course, he also has the T-shirt of the album "And Justice for All" by Metallica, which inspired the name of the band.
When we talk about rock style, the skate world is never far away and Justice is no exception: Xavier sometimes wears plaid shirts and both often wear Vans.
We also notice Nike Blazers and Adidas Americana on their feet, models initially intended for basketball players and then adopted in streetwear culture.
Even when they wear color, it's rock style. And American style.
AVD Album: From Leather to Satin
Early 2011. Some fans are still recovering from the emotions of the first Justice tour and others are already impatiently waiting for the next one. For my part, I scan the rumors about the next album on the forums and something seems to happen.
It actually happens in March:
Justice turns again to the world of fashion, not luxury but sportswear this time. They kick off their new single with an Adidas ad directed by Romain Gavras (Stress music video, A Cross the Universe documentary).
This single is called Civilization, it is there to ensure the transition between the first and second album, Audio Video Disco, which will be released on October 24, 2011.
A useful transition because it is a surprise for fans: this new album is very different from Cross.
We hear warmer guitars and drums than the compressed kicks and bass of the previous album. In fact, Justice hardly samples anything this time. A practice that is very widespread in electronic music. It is representative of their desire to make the album more organic. In concert, they add organ pipes to their scenography and divide the stage in two to play their synth solo.
We go from the hard rock spirit to stadium rock, the one that makes us sing along rather than screaming shirtless (which doesn't stop them from giving concerts full of pogos by remixing these songs with the first album). Yesterday, it was Metallica and today, the inspirations are rather The Who, Supertramp and David Crosby to whom Justice pays homage in the title Ohio:
The album cover also says it all. Xavier and Gaspard talk about an album to listen to in broad daylight, while the first one was more nocturnal. If you look closely above, you will see them very small next to the cross. No leather jackets: they are wearing white t-shirts, bleached jeans and they are barefoot.
This musical warming is seen precisely in their looks. Xavier appears with a new Balmain leather jacket swapping black for a warm red with a bomber shape.
Leather itself is gradually leaving the group's outfits in favor of denim trucker jackets. Gucci for Xavier who likes to show off his taste for beautiful things, Levi's for Gaspard who is always loyal to thrift stores.
On tour, they switch from leather jackets to satin bombers.
Remember the collab with Surface to Air in 2008? It will be in satin this time too.
The vigilantes will even appear with a red version of these jackets.
And that's just the beginning of their move to color.
Album Woman: the flow of colors
Less rock, more pop, more singing, still disco. There is even a song about love, a first for the group.
This tenderness does not prevent them from sowing anarchy in concert with pieces like Chorus and Heavy Metal, mixed with the sauce of previous albums. Concerts that themselves become even more organic, with more instruments and an open scenography that reveals their looks more than ever.
The colors are surging on their live screens, on the album cover and on their outfits. I noticed it from their interview for the media Clique (which I highly recommend) when the album came out.
Starter jackets in the colors of American football teams, including the New York Giants, often worn by Gaspard. Above, he doesn't forbid himself one of his famous printed t-shirts underneath, but for the cover of the traditional Tsugi, he goes so far as to recall the letters of the jacket with a red turtleneck.
The video for Fire (the album's single) directed by Pascal Teixeira in 2016 also shows how bright and colorful the Justice style is now. Far from the black leather of the first tour, Gaspard wears a starter jacket from the Baltimore Orioles baseball team and Xavier a faded denim trucker jacket.
And speaking of trucker jackets, Justice's big clothing collab is once again representative of the musical turning point of his album: after black leather and satin, it's Levi's blue denim dotted with colorful patches bearing the group's songs.
Under Xavier's jackets, the plaid skater shirts become patterned Hawaiian shirts.
Gaspard’s tailoring getaway
June 25, 2021. The Woman album tour is over and Covid has passed by. Which gave him time to finalize his solo album: Escapades, a concentrate of personal pieces that he had kept on hand for more than 10 years for some. No singing, no rock, Gaspard reveals his love for film music, orchestras and their epic arrangements that he revisits in his own way. The soundtrack of his life in a way, with inspirations such as Alessandro Alessandroni, Ennio Morricone's solo whistler for Sergio Leone's westerns.
To stick to the retro 70s universe, and perhaps to break away from Justice's jackets, Gaspard switched to a Gucci suit with bell-bottoms as soon as the album was announced with the Force Majeure video (a title referring to the energy provided by major chords in music).
He was then dressed by the Spanish stylist Marina Monge who would also work on the album's clips.
Perfectly executed tailored looks that Gaspard will bring back with him in the group's outfit.
Hyperdrama Album: Contrast and Maturity
Released in April 2024, Hyperdrama is the group's most contrasting album.
There are pop and soaring tracks like Neverender…
…alongside energy turbines like Generator, with influences from gabber (a subgenre of Dutch hard-core techno from the 90s).
The more curious will recognize the first notes here at 3:24:
There are also sometimes big gaps within the same piece, like One Night/All Night whose sound textures mix disco and gabber as well.
Coincidence or not, I find this difference in registers between Xavier and Gaspard's outfits. Although the latter has released his musical impulses in his solo project, he has kept his costumes while Xavier often stays in a jacket (black rather than colored, unlike the Woman period and like the Hyperdrama cover).
In Hyperdrama, they also show that they have reached a certain creative maturity. The band fully assumes its spontaneity, while the music of the previous albums was more polished. I think for example of the break in “Dear Alan” (3:40). When you listen to it, you say to yourself “Ok, the guys do what they want now. And it’s so good”.
They open up to other universes through equally assumed featurings, with artists who bring a different touch. This gesture also reflects a certain creative maturity, as for Daft Punk in Random Access Memories.
Justice also presents this album as an introspection. They illustrate it with this glass cross that reveals its organs. And what is more mature than an introspection, finally?
As if both had decided to dress in this maturity, Xavier sometimes lets himself be convinced by Gaspard's costumes.
Where they had started the very first one in 2007.
At that time, black leathers and big zips, they were at the bottom of the festival poster. This year, they were at the top. The occasion deserved a costume even if shoulder pads or not, Gaspard and Xavier will always have a rock star look.
