Kavinsky (a.k.a. Vincent Pierre Claude Belorgey, born July 31, 1975) is a French house/electronic artist who is known primarily for creating upbeat but also somewhat thematically dark Synth-Pop reminiscent of 1980s sci-fi and action film soundtracks.
Belgory recorded his first single, "Testarossa Overdrive", after being inspired by a pair of fellow friends who worked in filmmaking. From there, Belgory was signed to the Record Makers music label and released three EP's from 2006 to 2010. He achieved major mainstream attention when "Nightcall", the lead single off his third LP, was used as the opening theme to the film Drive (2011) starring Ryan Gosling.
Belgory's next EP, ProtoVision, was released in December 2012, followed by his first studio album, Outrun, in February 2013. The latter is a Concept Album about the character of Kavinsky, who is a high school student who crashes his Cool Car before mysteriously coming back to life and going to find his high school sweetheart. The subsequent release, Zenith (2022), is a sequel to Outrun.
As a result of his mainstream success, Belgory has raised public interest in other Synthwave artists. His work is also meant as a Genre Throwback to the 1980s film soundtracks of John Carpenter and Tangerine Dream.
Discography:
- Teddy Boy (EP) (2006)
- 1986 (EP) (2007)
- Blazer (EP) (2008)
- Nightcall (EP) (2010)
- ProtoVision / Odd Look (EP) (2013)
- Outrun (2013)
- Reborn (2022)
The band and their music provide examples of the following:
- Anachronism Stew: While the story is explictly stated to take place in 1986, the song "Suburbia" has several contemporary pop culture references, including mentions of Gwyneth Paltrow, Facebook and Twitter.
- The story started in 1986 when Kavinsky died, but goes on to state Kavinsky returned to life in 2006 and is still active into the present day.
- Anti-Villain: Although the character's motivations are largely altruistic or heroic in nature (saving the waitress, for example), he's also been shown (in the music video for ProtoVision) to have run down an off-duty police officer just for the act of chasing him (via crushing the officer's body against a fence and watching as he dies).
- The lyrics to Renegade also touch on the trope, implying Kavinsky is well aware of it and struggles with not sliding into villainy.
- Cool Car: Kavinsky's Ferrari Testarossa. It's also Vincent's personal ride.
- Cool Shades: One of Kavinsky's defining traits. Used to hide Red Eyes, Take Warning. The shades only come down when Things Get Real.
- Concept Album: Outrun is definitely this. It is implied this will develop into a full Myth Arc surrounding the character of Kavinsky.
- The Drifter: The natural consequence of Kavinsky's role as a Flying Dutchman type character.
- Fearless Undead: Kavinsky is quite bold in the music videos, getting in numerous fights with thugs and saving numerous innocents. It's doubtful that this is what his character was like before he came back as a zombie.
- Flying Dutchman: Kavinsky is pretty much a variant of this.
- Genre Throwback: Largely to 80s film soundtracks.
- Lovable Jock: Kavinsky himself.
- Made of Iron: Kavinsky; The "Odd Look" video sees him shrug off a number of physical blows, and the "Renegade" video cranks it up with Kavinsky taking a Megaton Punch from another undead. On both occasions, he treats the blows more as a frustration than actually harmful.
- No Doubt the Years Have Changed Me: "Nightcall" is about Kavinsky explaining to his old love how he has changed since his death and rebirth.
- Ordinary High-School Student: Kavinsky starts out as one, and still dresses like one after his death and revival.
- Our Zombies Are Different: Kavinsky is a heroic example, though the music video for "Renegade"
reveals he's not the only revenant running around, but he's the only one who seems to be firmly on the side of right. - Perma-Stubble: Kavinsky has a Perma-Stubble mustache. Possibly a Shout-Out to Detective Crockett from Miami Vice.
- Punched Across the Room: The "Renegade" music video's entire first half is Kavinsky being blown through the better part of an office building after catching a surprise Megaton Punch from another undead.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: Happens in a few of the music videos. Crosses over with Glowing Eyelights of Undeath.
- Red Is Heroic: Kavinsky's letterman jacket.
- Retraux: The font, color palette, and fashions in both the videos and promotional materials are all clearly meant to evoke this.
- Synth-Pop: Some of Kavinsky's work is this, particularly the song "Nightcall."
- Sunglasses at Night: Kavinsky.
- Unbuilt Trope: Outrun is widely considered one of, if not the first proper synthwave LP, and for as many tropes it codified, it can also appear very deconstructive in its approach to synthwave, simply because its hallmarks weren't quite as well established.
- Many standard pop music tropes (like A Wild Rapper Appears! below) would be unheard of in most "mainstream" synthwave track.
- A vocoder is used on Nightcall, despite the instrument not being widespread in the genre.
- The character of Kavinsky is based on the artist himself, when most synthwave artists are anonymous.
- The whole plot of the album seems like a deconstruction of the synthwave ideal. Whereas most synthwave artists blatantly fetishize the 80s, its ideal of coolness and its sportscars, Outrun shows that Kavinsky is actually a terrifying zombie freak, and his cursed Testarossa is the source of all his troubles. Ironically enough, the "cars and babes" subset of synthwave is named Outrun,
partially because of this album.
- A Wild Rapper Appears!: The otherwise retro-electronic "Outrun" album has the rap song "Suburbia", featuring lyrics by Havoc with a jarring shift in profanity.
- Your Head Asplode: The music video for Renegade ends with Kavinsky psychically doing this (from what amounts to at least a city block away) to the group of revenants who jumped him at the start of the video. Given the side effects we see, doing this apparently puts a lot of strain on Kavinsky, however.
