I just saw the music video “deux pieds” by Thomas Fersen and loved it. I also know a bit of French and would love to get to know the language through music.
Please give me a list of French language (Canadian, African, and French) music and musicians. Any genre is fine too; I’ll decide what I like in the end. I enjoy modern music, but I will check out traditional stuff too.
If there is a webpage of French top 20 (or whatever) music, please give me that also. In fact, just give me it all. Whatever you know about French music!
I personally enjoy listening to classic French jazz vocalists of the post-war period…sort of the French equivalent of Frank Sinatra or Ella Fitzgerald. I especially like Charles Trenet. Edith Piaf is of course classic, and Jacques Brel is also good (Belgian, but he sings in French). Yves Montand is another name to look for, and Maurice Chevalier is also fun. This tends to be the sort of music you find on “Best of France” and “Paris est toujours Paris!”-type compilations, which can really vary in quality but can be a nice introduction if you don’t want to buy too many individual CDs.
You may or may not be into club/lounge music, but if you are, I highly recommend the Paris Lounge compilations. There are two editions, both mostly instrumental dance music split up into Day/Night collections, as one CD tends to be smokier and groovier (and more evening-appropriate) than the other. One of the more popular French songs right now is “Face à la mer” by Calogaro. It’s rock/pop, sort of comparable to America’s Incubus or Evanescence.
Les Nubiens, a duo of African-American sisters (I think?), put out pretty nice music in both French and English. Princesses Nubiennes has a nice R&B groove softened with an airy – almost new-age – etherealism. “Les Portes du Souvenir” was one of their bigger songs from that album, so look it up if you’re so inclined. The women have divine voices.
One of my favorite guitarists is the French gypsy jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt, who played in the 1930s and '40s. He often collaborated with jazz violinist Stephane Grappelli. Django Reinhardt was an amazing talent (especially considering his fingers were malformed), and he was a major influence on the '90s swing/lounge band 8 1/2 Souvenirs (based in Austin, Texas, but led by a Django-loving Frenchman), the music in the animated film The Triplets of Belleville, and the Woody Allen film Sweet and Lowdown, starring Sean Penn.
OK, I can only speak of 60s and 70s French music, but the following artists are essential, and still relevent today–the styles are kind of poppy, lounge-y, chansons-y.
Serge Gainsbourg (pick up Comic Strip)
Francoise Hardy (The Vogue Years is a very good compilation)
Brigitte Fontaine (try Comme la Radio)
Pick up all of those. You won’t regret it.
I of course second the Edith Piaf suggestion. Try L’essential for, well, the essentials.
For something more modern, I actually enjoy Adjani’s Pull Marine. You can also try Stereolab, although they’re an English band with some French thrown in. Emperor Tomato Ketchup is their seminal work, and “Cybele’s Reverie” (which is sung in French) the high point of that album.
Contemporary pop includes the very well-known French pop/electronica duo Air, the “world music” group L’ Affaire Louis Trio, and the Brooklyn (but exclusively French-singing) camp outfit Les Sans Culottes, whose music and overall style is an homage (and maybe a bit of a sendup) to 60’s French pop psychedelia.
Plus tons and tons of “world music” types, many of whom are of North African (esp. Algerian) origin. A good sampling of this is found in the “Chill Out in Paris” compilation series, mixed by DJ David Visan. Good stuff; sophisticated, smart, and “exotic” but accessible.
Don’t even know where to start… I’m totally into French and Québecois music… I’ll list some that I listen to all the time…
Paris Combo - very fun music that hit number one in France a while ago
Sylvie Vartan - been around since the 60’s, but I like her new stuff…
Beau Dommage - If you’re into the “70’s sound”
Claude Dubois - Québec legend
Daniel Lavoie - Franco-Canadien
Diane Dufresne - love her 70’s/80’s stuff
Georges Brassens - old fashioned traditional male French singer
Harmonium - another Québec 70’s band
Hart-Rouge - very cool Franco-Ontarien band that mixes English and French
Joe Dassin - traditional male French singer
Félix Leclerc - another Québec legend
Marie-Hélene Thibault - winner of Québec’s Star Academie (sort of like American Idol, only not so cut-throat)
Star Academie I and II CD’s - songs by all the singers who participated
Mitsou - used to be a hit in Gay bars, dunno about now… Pop music
Robert Charlebois - another Québec legend
Véronique Sanson - Used to be married to David Crosby - Think I have about 15 of her CD’s…
No comprehensive, global survey of French-language music would be complete without some of that zany stuff that is zouk (creole slang for “party”). I still treasure my copy of Hurricane Zouk [Virgin, 1987; good luck finding a copy these days] for its irrepresible exuberance and cheesy glory. This LP has the added benefit of explanatory liner notes (excerpts below):
“Bursting out from the French Antilles, Guadeloupe and Martinique… [zouk] has the Merengue from the Dominican Republic, the Bomba from Puerto Rico, the Rhumba from Cuba, Cadance from Haiti, Reggae from Jamaica and Calypso and Soca from Trinidad.” (And the compulsory capitalizing of nouns from the das Deutsche? – yrs. truly)
“A sharply produced mix of African and Caribbean with Hi-Tech production values, ZOUK first emerged in 1982… [Early examples included] Kassav… [producer] Jacob Desvarieux…”
“[Zouk offers] the rhythms of black music and… the harmony of white music.”
The artists on Hurricane Zouk are: Zouk Time, Francky Vincent, Gerard Hubert, Come Back Des Vikings Guadaloupe, Vik’in, and Soukoue Ko Ou (and there are two diacritical marks in that last artist’s name). I have no idea if zouk is still an ongoing musical subgenre. If you should happen to stumble across any “old-school” '80’s zouk music, go ahead and give it a try. At least it’s a lot cheaper than wintering in the Fr. Antilles…
Talking about Véronique Samson, try the Ville-Émard Blues Band. They were her back-up band when she was touring Québec in the 70s.
Other bands of interest :
Offenbach, Québec rock,
Corbeau, another Québec rock band, born of a split from Offenbach,
Octobre, jazz-rock,
Maneige, jazz-rock,
Gilles Vigneault, Québec legend (talking about Vigneault, try to find the album J’ai vu le lion, le loup et le renard recorded during a francophone festival in Québec city in the 70s. It is an album that features Vigneault, Charlebois and Leclerc and can serve as a good introduction to their works. Talking about Charlebois, his better works are those form the late 60s to the mid-70s, before he made it big in France.
Definitely check out Serge Gainsbourg - as mentioned, the compilation “comic strip” is a killer selection for getting started. Serge was sort of the Elvis - or maybe Prince - of French music between the sixties and eighties. He was a brilliant lyricist and songwriter - often his lyrics contain double or even triple-entendres, plays-on-words, and allusions - and was hilariously offensive (like the time he told a young Whitney Houston “I want to fuck you” on an Italian talk show, or the time he wrote a song and filmed a video about having incest with his young daughter, Charlotte). Good stuff!
Does Cajun music count? I love the band [url=http://www.rosebudus.com/beausoleil/]Beausoleil[/url.]
They are wonderful live, and they certainly sing in French.
The original French version of Les Miserables is as good as it gets. They changed some of the show for the English (and every other language ever spoken by anybody living or dead) crowd, but the original is much much better.
Robert Marien’s CD “Broadway Montreal” has two songs from Phantom and some other show tunes in French. He did the 1988 Paris revival of Les Miz. That show was recorded, but it’s out of print. If you find the CD, buy it because it’s rare and very good.
ABBA also recorded Waterloo in French. Their only French recording. And Louis Pitre, star of Broadway’s Mamma Mia, recorded two ABBA songs in French and tacked them onto a reissue of her CD “All My Life is a Song.”
Lastly, there is the French version of CATS. It’s mediocre, even for CATS, but OOP and rare.
Heh. I actually have been playing French-language music professionally for a year or so now. I second Jacques Brel; he has written some of the most beautiful songs ever (Ne Me Quitte Pas is my favorite).
I’ll also add:
Jacques Higelin (rock and roll/blues kind of stuff)
Claude Nougaro (wonderful piano player, writer. Jazzy. He just passed away within the year)
Michel Legrand (incredible jazz pianist and composer. He’s done a number of film scores that have been internationally acclaimed. Beautiful stuff)
Liane Augustin was an Austrian torch singer who made some beautiful recordings in French.
Manu Chao sings a few songs in French, though most are Spanish.
While were on the subject, I heard a female French singer on a world music radio show last night, but didn’t catch the name. Anyone know a musician who plays kind of acoustic rock? The song I heard musicaly was like a chilled out Ani Difranco. I’d welcome all suggestions. Thanks.
