Forays into French Language

I said I’d do an article about French music. This one’ll be a bit different to the Russian Top Ten list though. It’s a bit more anecdotal. So gather round children, I’ll tell you how I first started listening to French-language music.

We can begin with this song.

It’s sung in English, so it’s not French-language. However, the band are French (well, half-French - the singer is Finnish-French), and I saw it on French TV, which is the main thing.

At the time, (this is maybe fifteen plus years ago), I had a habit of flicking around the foreign TV stations. Purely out of curiosity. Y’know, all those weird foreign stations that are lost somewhere between the cartoons and the adult channels in the higher echelons of the digibox.

On some of the French channels I came across live music shows, and given my love of music they became a regular haunt. Naturally, as with most music, a lot of it wasn’t to my taste. Still, I did come across a few things that I really liked. It was on TV5Monde that I first came across Julien Doré and La Grande Sophie. Two artists I still listen to now.

I think, if I recall correctly, the above performance by The Dø was on a different network. Anyway, that particular performance stands out because it impressed me to the extent that I went out and bought the album. I say ‘went out,’ I actually bought it online, from some distinctly foreign website, because I couldn’t find it anywhere else. No doubt you can easily find it on Amazon nowadays.

(Reading their Wikipedia I was surprised to find they’re Billie Eilish’s favourite band. That made me feel fashionably ahead of the curve.)

Since then I’ve gathered a collection of French tracks and artists that I like. Mainly through the internet tourism that comes via YouTube recommendations.

What’s interesting about French music is that it’s very ..French. The music videos tend to be very arty and avant-garde, and sex never seems far away. Though it’s a French movie kind of sex. Not the sex we see in hip-hop videos or on OnlyFans. There’s something more adult and grown-up about their music. It’s not as aimed at teenagers. Yet, on the flip side, it’s also more pretentious. It’s adjacent to the art gallery or coffee shop more so than the nightclub or teenage party.

If I had to give an example of what I mean I’d go with this one. (Though technically the artist here is Swiss, not French.)

Bizarre, mildly perverse, but entertaining.

Being British it’s hard to give too much praise to the French, but I can’t help but admire how distinctive their culture is. Frenchness is a thing. It really is unmistakable.

Perhaps I should do a top ten? Maybe next time.