Éric Cantona drops debut album: the multi-talented artist opens up

At 59, Éric Cantona has just dropped his debut album. Anyone who watched him drift his tortured-poet silhouette across English pitches won't be surprised. "I'm increasingly in the moment and following my instincts," he says. And honestly, listening to his songs, you take him at his word. It's raw, it's direct, it's him.

Guy Roux, the padlocks and the urge to break free

To get this album, you need to remember the kid. That old story still doing the rounds: at Auxerre, old man Roux used to put padlocks on the windows to stop his lads sneaking out at night. But Éric Cantona, even then, was a slippery customer. He always found a way to do a runner. Until the day he got caught. That hunger for freedom, it's still there, thirty years on. It runs through his songs the way it used to run through opposition defences.

And then there's this image that keeps cropping up. At parties, on kids' t-shirts, I see that famous cardboard mask of his face everywhere. That distant stare, the turned-up collar. A pop icon who transcends football. The Éric Cantona t-shirts, emblazoned with his punchlines or his angelic mug, are flying off the shelves. Proof the legend's as strong as ever.

"Music is the most important thing today"

So yes, he sings now. And he puts it bluntly: "music is the most important thing today". The man who's done it all – film, theatre, ads – lays his baritone voice over electro soundscapes. He delivers his lyrics in English, in French, as naturally as breathing. In this first album, I find everything that makes this bloke unique:

• The kid from Marseille, rough-edged and radiant.
• Manchester's number 7, the raw nerve who lifted trophies.
• The actor, who lent his face to Ken Loach.
• The old sage, who throws out throwaway aphorisms worth their weight in gold.

I've had the album on repeat. There are moments of grace, flashes of brilliance. You sense he's taken his time, waited until he had something to say. No filler, just instinct. Like an Éric Cantona who's finally found the escape route to express what's burning inside him.

The man who moves with the times without ageing a day

That's the craziest thing about him. One minute it's a cardboard mask doing the rounds on social media, the next it's a kid in an Éric Cantona t-shirt on the tube, and the myth starts all over again. He's become a timeless figure in the French landscape, a chic rebel everyone wants a piece of. So his album might not top the charts. But that's not the point. He went and did it. He opened up, his way, no holds barred. And honestly, in times like these, a bloke who still dares to be himself – it's bloody refreshing.