Music Video: Housse de Racket - Oh Yeah!

I am slowly being dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st Century.  Sure, I blog, and I have an active profile on Facebook.  But I'd rather pound spikes through my skull than Tweet, and until recently I really didn't look at other people's blogs.  However, there's something of a community of people who blog about music in other parts of the world, and when my own well of musical awareness runs dry, these blogs are a great place to go for inspiration.

Today I found out about a nice little outfit out of Chaville, France called Housse de Racket.  They hit it big within their own borders back in 2008 with their first single Oh Yeah!  As you can hear for yourself, this bit of Euro pop is insidiously catchy.  They recently came out with their second album, "Alesia", back in November.  This outing is much less pop, and much more electronica.  But it too is full of catchy musical hooks.

Music Video: Superbus - Tiens le Fil

Despite all the evidence to the contrary on this blog, I still can't help but think of most French music as being some mild updating of the cabaret sound.  For all the songs by BB Brunes, Naast, or Les Shades that I play, I can't help but be reminded of songs by Les Negresses Vertes, Paris Combo, and Caravan Palace.  Now don't get me wrong, I love that second group of bands as much as I love the first.  But they always strike me as being excessively self-consciously and defensively French.

So I get excited when I hear a French band that blows that self-reinforcing French music cliche out of the water.  Superbus is one of those bands.  Granted, this is an older song.  But sweet Jehovah, these guys can rock in a way that transcends culture!  It is hard to argue against a song like Tiens le Fil when the drums start pounding, the guitars start screaming, and the bass starts throbbing. 

Music Video: Tété - Fils de Cham

As a blogger of negligible note but of global scope and ambitions, I am always interested to see where my readers come from.  It's no surprise that most readers come from the United States.  Similarly, it's no surprise that many readers come from places like Germany, Spain, or Russia - places whose musicians I have profiled over the past couple of years.  What does surprise me is that I get almost no visitors from France.  Heaven knows I have tried.  Posts about French artists are among my most viewed posts. . . it's just that they're not being viewed by people actually from France.

Well, let nobody accuse me of not being willing to beat my head bloody against that wall of Gallic indifference.  Today I bring you my favorite French artist of 2012, Tété.  As one of Paris' adopted sons, Tété has been writing and performing gripping guitar driven rock/R&B hybrid songs for years.  Finally, with his most recent release, "Le Premier Clair de l'Aube", he is getting the attention he deserves.  The song Fils de Cham perfectly represents this thoroughly enjoyable album.

Not French but French

One of the first things you notice when you listen to music produced around the world is how much of it is in English.  This is true, not just in the English world as one would expect, but in non-English speaking countries as well.  With the worldwide popularity of American and British musicians, this is perhaps not all that surprising.  However, one thing that I have noticed as I have tried to find non-English popular music is how many artists perform in French when they are from non-French speaking countries.  This is not a knock in any way on the French language.  Rather, it is an observation that French, for all of its beauty and rich artistic heritage, is not widely regarded as the international language of popular music in the same way that English is.

With this in mind, I thought it might be fun to showcase three of these Francophone artists that hail from non-French countries.

First, I bring you an artist from Poland that I just recently discovered named Mademoiselle Karen.  Her music, at least on the track Ouaf, Ouaf, is hip-hop.  However, her heart is very much in the realm of French cabaret.  Adding to the confusion, Mademoiselle Karen is a classically trained musician who was born and raised in Denmark before moving to Poland to perform with Czeslaw Mosil (a fellow graduate of the Royal Danish Academy of Music). 

Next on tap, I reacquaint you with the German group Pierre Ferdinand et les Charmeurs, who performed respectably in the Bundesvision 2011 competition.  Now, I have to admit to cheating a little bit here.  Despite having many French related titles, despite usually having French subject matter, and despite often singing in what I take to be French-accented German, their lyrics are typically in German.  But hey, it's my blog, and I can showcase whatever bands I want to.  In Alles von Pierre, Pierre Ferdinand et les Charmeurs follow their usual formula of playing heavily French-influenced swing and lounge.

Finally, I bring you a band from the good old U.S. of A.  Nous non Plus has been lighting up New York City since 2005, when they formed out of the ashes of another faux-French band Les Sans Coulottes.  While often teetering on the edge of being a novelty act, Nous non Plus produces some excellent French-language pop that would not be out of place in Paris.  The new track J'en Ai Marre perfectly showcases Nous non Plus' ability to put out insanely catchy tunes in a language that probably few of their listeners actually understand.

ADDENDUM: 

Well, I'm a day late and a dollar short, but here's another artist that I wanted to be sure to add to this list because A) I can; and B) I love this song.  Paula is another German artist, who produces some very danceable electro-pop.  Most of the time, she sings in German.  Every once in a while, perhaps because her brand of electro-pop has wide appeal in France, she sings in French.  C'est comme ça is perhaps her best example. 

Blast From the Past: Les Négresses Vertes - Sous le Soleil de Bodega

1992 was an important year for me.  It was the summer between my Freshman and Sophomore years of college, and I was in Prague working on a documentary crew.  The last Soviet troops were pulling out of Czechoslovakia, the first faint murmurs of the Slovak independence movement were starting to be heard, and one of our assistant directors introduced me to Les Négresses Vertes ("LNV").  The first time I heard their exciting mix of gypsy guitar, French cabaret attitude, rollicking horns, and rock and roll beat, I was forever hooked.  Sous le Soleil de Bodega was a track from LNV's second album "Famille Nombreuse", and it perfectly captures what their music was all about.

Well, time marches on.  That job in Prague got me my first (and only so far) full-time job after college.  Through a co-worker, I met the woman who became my wife and ultimately the mother of my child.  The rest, as they say, is history.  As for LNV, after the release of "Famille Nombreuse" their lead singer died of a heroin overdose.  They soldiered on for another couple more proper studio albums, a "live" album, a "remix" album, an "acoustic" album, and a "best of" album, drifting from what some critics described as "gypsy punk" to electronica in the process.

Ultimately, though, the legacy of LNV in my life is that it was my first window into a world of popular music coming out of the non-English speaking world.

Music Video: BB Brunes - Perdus Cette Nuit

BB Brunes are the standard bearers of France's "Le Nouvelle Scène", which consists of French bands playing hard driving rock 'n roll while singing in - gasp - French.   Well, good for them, I say!  With their song Perdus Cette Nuit, complete with driving beat, raucous guitar, and grinding keyboard, BB Brunes really sets the tone for the movement.  But this energy carries through on both of their two studio albums (so far).

Music Video: Second Sex - J'ai Couché Avec Le Diable

French popular music is finally moving beyond the whole chanson/accordion thing.  Indicative of this trend is the "punk" band Second Sex and their song J'ai Couché Avec Le Diable.  Like much other French "punk", their version is much more in the style of New York than California or London - complete with lots of ripped jeans and black leather jackets.  They have a great sound though.

Music Video: Koalas Desperados - Keep Marching

What happens when you mix a German and French songwriter/producer team with vocalists from Germany, Spain, Portugal, and Uganda (by way of Sweden), on top of a reggae groove?  Well, with all those different influences, probably just about anything can happen.  In this case, though, you get Koalas Desperados and their tune Keep Marching. 

Music Video: Caravan Palace - Jolie Coquine

Somewhat like the Swedish band Movits!, French band Caravan Palace is trying to bring swing into the 21st Century.  While Movits! accomplishes this by combining hip-hop and swing, Caravan Palace is a leading exponent of the electroswing genre.  On songs like Jolie Coquine, it works exquisitely well.  Whether you want to or not, while watching this video your foot will start tapping.  Just wait.  You'll see. . .

Music Video: Manu Chao - Politik Kills

It would be extremely difficult to talk about non-English popular music without mentioning French-born artist Manu Chao.  First hitting big-time fame with his band Mano Negra, Manu has been a solo act since they broke up in the mid-1990s.  With songs like Politik Kills, Manu has remained a major force in the Latin-Alternative scene; a scene which he was instrumental in creating in the first place.