Dancing the French Way

Danse à la musique française

Bonjour mes ami(e)s de musique. As I have a close link to France I will start my own Dance Weekend with some French Music - maybe I continue with more from the country of love, revolution and lovely women. I was lucky enough in my youth to learn French with two girlfriends, to visit Paris and to even handle part of my university education in the South of France. However I lost most of my French vocabulary. I am able to speak and especially to understand but written French is come la merde (desolé pur get mot). Hope I am not killed for using the French FR tag.

France is popular for a lot music styles mainly one we cover quickly - but they also have a lot to offer in terms of Dance Music - Electronic and others.

What do we know about French music?

The country is widely known for their chanson and cabaret style. But France offers a diverse array of styles. Did you know that it was in France when the earliest known sound recording device was patented? The phonautograph is a French innovation from 1857 by Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville in 1857.

1 - The famous Chansons

Chanson Française is THE French music style probably everyone has heard of at least. The most famous pioneers of this genre include Édith Piaf, Juliette Greco, Jacques Brel, Gilbert Bécaud, Charles Aznavour. France is considered as a cultural dynasty and particularly the French tradition of the chanson plays a key role when promoting the country and its culture. The French chanson is a lyric-driven music, much more than other music genres, maybe HipHop comes near in this respect. Edith Piaf might be the most popular chanteuse and icon who was famous for her ballads with a self-reflexive nature, “La Vie en Rose” is considered to be THE chanson for a lot generations still.

2 - Pop, Rock, Dance and Electronic Music

Within the wide area of Pop Music France has produced a lot known artists within electronic music, hiphop, disco and dance.

A very famous artists in the Pop Rock space is Jean-Jacques Goldman who even is a Grammy Award winner. His fame in the French speaking world is huge and I learned his music during some exchange programs with France in my youth. Check him out in the following:

Another international popular band or project from the electronic music area is Daft Punk a duo from Paris. The band was formed in 1993 and achieved significant popularity in the late 1990s as part of the French house movement. They continued to be success story until now being able to combine several music elements of house, techno, disco, funk, rock to create their own unique style.

Not to forget a true pioneer of electronic music - Jean-Michel Jarre was filling stadiums or public places like the Place de la Concorde with his futuristic synthesizer music in the late 70ies already. His first commercial success was the 1976 album Oxygène of which around 12 million copies have been sold.

Sources: Parissattitude, YouTube, Wikipedia