French Pop

Les Variations: Cafe De Paris (Buddah)

Review by Robot A. Hull, Creem, June 1975

THE FRENCH ARE the coolest breed (that's a fact), even more cool than blacks or faggots. Rimbaud and Cocteau were no poopoos, fella. In fact, ...

Billy Swan, Jordanaires, The, Eddy Mitchell: Eddy Mitchell/Billy Swan/The Jordanaires: Olympia, Paris

Report and Interview by Bob Woffinden, NME, June 1975

Vegas on 8 cheeseburgers a day...or a bitch-in with Nashville's men of steel in Gay Paree. Which would you prefer? ...

Négresses Vertes, Les: Les Négresses Vertes: Famille Nombreuse (Circal All formats)

Review by Betty Page, NME, February 1992

NOW WE are all stars in the Euro firmament (at least, that's what Mick Hucknall tells us), perhaps it's time to reappraise our attitude towards ...

Daft Punk: Plastique Fantastique

Interview by David Stubbs, Melody Maker, March 1997

It's taken a while, but mainstream America is finally welcoming dance music with open aims. Now they're going crazy over the Chemicals and are poised ...

Apres Nous Le Deluge: The Nouvelle Vague Of Pop Francaise

Report and Interview by Rob Chapman, MOJO, July 1998

"THERE’S NOTHING HAPPENING in England right now. It’s like 1975. Deep Purple for me are like The Prodigy. Led Zeppelin are Chemical Brothers." Daniel Auxerre, ...

Air: Moon Safari

Review by Barney Hoskyns, Request, Spring 1998

MODULAR FRENCHMEN Nicolas Godin and Jean Benoit Dunckel need no reminding that French pop has always been a bit of a joke. With the brilliant ...

Phoenix

Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Revolver, 2000

AIR'S ADORABLE Moon Safari proved if nothing else that the pop universe had become a less xenophobic place. Now comes the first album by Phoenix, ...

Air: 'If We Don't Surprise People Any More, Then We Will Die'

Interview by Chris Roberts, Uncut, June 2000

"THE FIRST time I was in LA," says Nicolas Godin, "I was in a very cool hotel. And in front of that hotel was a ...

Phoenix: United

Review by Tom Cox, Uncut, July 2000

THEY'RE FRENCH, they're pals with Air – and they sound like Steely Dan. ...

Phoenix

Profile and Interview by Paul Lester, Uncut, August 2000

SEVENTIES CALIFORNIA meets Y2K Paris. ...

Serge Gainsbourg: A Rake's Progress

Retrospective by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, January 2001

IF YOU WALK into the Montparnasse cemetery, the first thing you see is the enormous stone double bed where Charles Pigeon – the inventor of ...

Phoenix: Mean Fiddler 2, London

Live Review by Etienne Petit, Rock's Backpages, January 2001

WOULD LONDON BE rocking tonight to Phoenix if they weren’t French? I ask only as a fellow countryman of this very fine group. If Thomas ...

Daft Punk, Air: En Garde! Le Pop Nouveau Français, c’est Arrivé!

Profile by Etienne Petit, Rock's Backpages, March 2001

The late ’90s saw the flowering of a nouveau French techno-pop. Now Air, Daft Punk and friends are conquering the world. RBP’s Paris correspondent explains ...

Daft Punk: Discovery

Review by David Stubbs, Uncut, April 2001

Gods of "filter disco" finally issue follow-up to 1997'strailblazing Homework. ...

Air: 10,000 Hz Legend (Source/Virgin)

Review and Interview by Jim Irvin, MOJO, April 2001

Self-proclaimed "grown-up" album from French duo who created 1998’s million-selling retro-pop classic, Moon Safari, and inspired many imitators. ...

Air, Daft Punk: Daft Punk & Air: Disco Tech

Profile and Interview by David Stubbs, Uncut, July 2001

DAFT PUNK AND AIR ARE THE BEATLES AND STONES OF THE INTERNATIONAL DANCE SCENE. SO WHY IS THE FRENCH ESTABLISHMENT – SO PROUD OF ITS ...

Daft Punk: French Pop: A Long Way From Françoise Hardy To Daft Punk

Overview by Pete Paphides, Times, The, February 2003

IT IS no surprise that France has only just got around to its own equivalent of Top Of The Pops. In a country where philosophy ...

Johnny Hallyday: Vive Johnny

Profile and Interview by Robin Eggar, Times, The, March 2003

THERE IS something reassuringly dissolute about Johnny Hallyday. He may be 59, but he inhabits one of those undernourished frames, all angles and sharp edges, ...

Jane Birkin, Serge Gainsbourg: Creme Anglaise: Jane Birkin

Profile and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Vogue, May 2003

THE REMAINS of an English breakfast stand on a table, and several bags are strewn around the room – one of them a well-worn example ...

Carla Bruni: Quelqu'un m'a dit (V2)

Review by Charlie Gillett, Observer, The, 2004

MAYBE YOU KNOW her name. I didn't when I first played songs from this album several times on the radio last year,, until a ...

Phoenix: Alphabetical

Review by Dan Gennoe, dotmusic.co.uk, June 2004

WHEN FRENCH POP did the unthinkable and became cool, Phoenix found themselves on the ones to watch list. Disappointingly they never got off it. The ...

French Rock'n'roll: What – No Accordion?

Interview by David McKenna, Guardian, The, October 2004

CALL A COMPILATION Le Nouveau Rock'n'roll Français and, even now, you risk sparking associations with the figure most people take to represent the old French ...

Camille: Le Fil (Bout du Fil)

Review by Charlie Gillett, Observer Music Monthly, April 2005

AT THE TIME of receiving this record, I had never heard of Camille before, and knew only that she is French. The photo on the ...

Serge Gainsbourg: What A Drag

Comment by Nick Kent, Guardian, The, April 2006

THROUGHOUT MY CAREER as a music journalist, I've often found myself sharing the same orbit as some of the more maladjusted talents of the late ...

Carla Bruni: The Literary Ambitions Of A Model

Interview by Ken Scrudato, SOMA, February 2007

THERE WAS a t-shirt going around a few years ago which snottily declared of its wearers, I Hate Models. Of course, it said way less ...

Charlotte Gainsbourg: Initials C.G.

Interview by Ken Scrudato, SOMA, April 2007

NEW YORK'S hideously hypocritical smoking policy (in a city choking on exhaust fumes) was a particular nuisance that morning at the impossibly fabulous Carlyle Hotel, ...

Air: Pocket Symphony

Review by Barney Hoskyns, Uncut, June 2007

SO HIP THEY'RE passé, sexy geekboys Air continue to mine the seam of elegiac futurism wowed ten thousand ad executives back in '98. After the ...

Jacques Brel: Jacques The Lad: Jacques Brel

Retrospective by Graeme Thomson, Guardian, The, February 2009

FIRST THINGS FIRST. Try to forget that Jacques Brel, the Belgian singer-songwriter, is indirectly responsible for Terry Jacks's 'Seasons in the Sun'. Forget also for ...

Phoenix: By the Time They Get to… Phoenix

Interview by Andrew Purcell, Guardian, The, October 2009

GROWING UP IN Versailles, an affluent suburb of Paris, the four boys who would eventually form Phoenix bonded over their love of American pop culture. ...

Daft Punk's robots aren't the only ones rocking the multiplex

Report by Paul Lester, Guardian, The, December 2010

AT THE END of the trailer to forthcoming movie Somewhere, we are given just two pieces of information: 1) that the film was written and ...

Johnny Hallyday: Royal Albert Hall, London

Live Review by Stephen Dalton, Times, The, October 2012

A MERE HALF century into his career, France's biggest rock star finally made his London live debut this week. After 110 million album sales, four ...