French rock groups

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE65B09020100612

"Thanks to the Internet, our generation has grown up listening to much more music than previous ones -- especially English-language music," says vocalist Jil Bensenior of folk-rock act Jil Is Lucky. The band's label, Roy Music, says its March 2009 self-titled debut album has sold 17,000 copies domestically...

EMI says Revolver's June 2009 debut album, "Music for a While," has sold 75,000 units. French label Wagram reports similar sales for Pony Pony Run Run's "You Need Pony Pony Run Run" and says "A Mouthful" by pop-rock band the Do and "Artificial Animals Riding on Neverland" by AaRON have sold 150,000 and 300,000, respectively.

Singing in English helped French rock band Phoenix breakthrough in the United States, where it has sold 428,000 copies of its album "Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix" (Glassnote), according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Several newer English-language acts also have overseas aspirations, with Cocoon joining Phoenix on the bill at this year's Coachella Festival. Revolver played five U.K. shows around the May 17 release of "Music for a While," and Jil Is Lucky played three London dates in May and June.

Wagram CEO Stephan Bourdoiseau says negotiations over a U.S. release for Pony Pony Run Run are well advanced. Band singer Gaetan Rechin Le Ky-Huong is confident of building an overseas fan base, as "most of our early listeners on MySpace were not from France," but from the United States and Germany.

I heart Edith Nylon so much

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8RDSoqVFCw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAEEaaGG4a4

Dogs rule.

this Tim album is righteous

http://tim-theteam.bandcamp.com/album/the-meadow-under-a-golden-sun-2013

the last track threatens to become a total rip-off of Neurosis' Stones From The Sky but then goes somewhere else

v cool album

From a longer cratedigger piece I wrote for the Voice in '04 (might do it differently now, but conveys the listening experience)

Consider this: "The rain won't let my tits grow. Napalm you're so good in bed. How many flies ate you today? Let's get hungry tonight." That's China whinin', like a siren, on "Suspenders in the Dark." She sings for Metal Boys (recombinant shards of Parisian punk pioneers Metal Urbain) on 1980's Tokio Airport. Now unearthed, and still flying together/apart on every track, Metal Boys' sexelectric dragon's teeth gnaw and gnash at China's objets d'amour-hate,especially on the title track. "Technofasceest," she hisses, and drives desperate, new unforgivable-synth stinky toys through "the anti-climax of X-mas Day," leaving them stuck inside a harmonically ravenous mobile in "Carbone 14." Later, in penance and/or celebration, China dances barefoot for a "Paranoia Carnival," on tone-nails of gilded Pong.

There was another Metal Urbain-related reissue around the same time, an album by Dr. Mix and the Remix. Pretty good, I think, though I don't remember it as well as Metal Boys and China's CD.

I really liked Deity Guns at least live. They had an lp produced by Lee Ranaldo. I think several members became a band called Batarde.

I also like the NYL lp from the mid 70s.

Catherine Ribeiro et les Alpes have some rock in their sound

Are Magma thought of as French or what? Kobaian Hitler loving gypsies?

Chico Magnetic Band

Rotomagus's cd is pretty great covering their progress from being a harmony band to protopunk dunt

RIEN is pretty good krautrocky post rock. Also all their stuff is available for free (Pau what u want) on their website

yeah Il ne peut y avoir de prédiction sans avenir by them is pretty good

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1S3R3miEBoU

Taï Phong was a pretty cool Franco-Vietnamese prog band ca. 1975, maybe not r'n'r enough for this thread

La Femme are my favourite rock band atm. Here they are weirding out the establishment (and winning awards) at the French Grammys

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3VqAtiX3hs

Yeah the La Femme album is a keeper (esp for fans of early B52s)

GUILTY RAZORS

of course METAIL URBAIN but also

DR MIX AND REMIX

sortilege - cracking '80s french metal

There were quite a few good French prog bands in various styles. Ange, Semool, Moving Gelatine Plates (who have their story told in the most recent Record collector BTW), Couer magique , Horrific Child, Chico magnetic band, Sandrose

There's also the folk into rock stuff like Malicorne and Alain Stivell though that's more electrified folk.

& I did enjoy Deity Guns in the early 90s. At least live where they looked pretty symmetrical on the stage cos about half of them were left handed players.

Airwave:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9-zDzA5wZg

Oh yeah meant say The dragons who apparently weren't a chinese punk rock group whose music was smuggled out of Red china by a french journalist but a hoax put together by the journalist and some fop his friends.
Anyway great Crampsy rumbles with one string viol asa lead instrument.
Really wish I hadn't lost their Parfums De la revolution when I left Dublin. Had been looking for a copy for years before i found it in a shop there.

Is there a French-language PJ Harvey?

A French-language Breeders?

Help, j'ai besoin de ecouter de musique francaise mais so much est n'est pas to my liking.

They sound neither like PJ Harvey nor like the Breeders, but have you tried Feu! Chatterton?

Will try now. Had no idea where to start but I am on to and enjoying La Femme!Thread delivers.

My mistake was listening to "learn French through French Music" playlists on Spotifying and thinking oh fuck no I don't even want to know French anymore :(

PS I really want to learn French.

OK Feu! Cahtterton is right up my alley. Plus, s'il vous plait!

Not a 'group' per se, but I can't believe no one in this thread mentioned Alain Bashung.

Play Blessures is a total classic

Thanks to this thread I am in a 100% better place wrt French music, thanking u. Keep 'em coming, merci.

quincie have you heard Lescop? he's got a new album out. not as keen on it as the one he did before but he does a great post-punk sound

Got a CD by a band called Soggy, who put out one single in 1980/81 - everything else on the disc is previously unreleased stuff. It's basic Stooges/MC5 garage punk, shirtless and shouty (they even covered "I Wanna Be Your Dog" fairly capably), recommended if you like that sort of thing.

Here's a video for their best known song, "Waiting for the War":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58XPsyWDEkw

Appropriately enough it looks like someone stuck Rob Tyner's head on Iggy's body.

That Soggy video is great! Fantastic guitar sound.

I really like the 2000s French punk band La Fraction. Female-fronted and super catchy without being pop-punk, exactly:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YexH60U0Rw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqAmPFA7-eg

Not a band neither but Brigitte Fontaine is probably the closest French singer to PJ Harvey.

Couldn't resist:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WfD8Dnh2xho

That Trust cover art is good fodder for the "one band member refuses to play along" thread.

Not en francias, and not even particularly representative of the band, but song has always felt like a precursor to PJ Harvey

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBNEJX6GC20

Has anybody mentioned
Deity Guns
Batarde
Rotomagus
Chico's Magnetic Band

the early 70s prog scene
Ange
Alice
etc etc

or the new volume of Souljazz's Punk 45 which is why I assumed this thread had been revived

The Arachnoïd s/t is imperative for all fans of unusual rock music. Opening track is a stunner

I seem to recall seeing something on an Orange Goblin tour feed where the lead singer for Soggy might have joined them or met them at a gig last year. It was the first time I had heard of Soggy.

xp You're not wrong! Somehow I've never heard this before

stevolende: you did, two years ago! :)

the punk 45 comp was interesting. got me to check out the dogs and guilty razors... as well as a 3 dans les wc, which may have been mentioned here? they're fairly well known. the thing was, i wasn't as much into it as i was into some of the french stuff on the "fake punk" comp "je suis punk". seriously, one listen to pas vraiment mechant by sexe a pile and you can fuck your authenticity narratives.

Shakin' Street made two pretty kick-ass albums. Though their singer was a woman, so she probably didn't sing about women or maybe she did.
― Mr. Diamond (diamond), Wednesday, April 9, 2003 11:55 PM (fourteen years ago)
She did sing about Susie Wong which was the title of a great single from their s/t first album and up to two days ago the only Shakin' Street song I'd ever heard (tho' I may have played the B-side once or twice).

Two days ago was idly flipping through the CDs in Kensington library and finding said first album. Bit of a Wow! moment; never expected to see that again.

I have been listing to French rock for like three days now, why don't I understand French yet?

You need to turn it up louder, my friend.

BTWxxxp there's a Kas Product comp on Soul Jazz but I think all of the tracks on it were issued relatively recently as bonus tracks on the reissues of their first two albums.

http://www.progarchives.com/french-progressive-rock-scene.asp

ugh that was hard to read. i'm listening to the last album by manu booz right now, though, and it's some pretty nice prog; slightly too much shredding for my taste, but some good writing too. reminds me a little bit of arrigo barnabe.

That article doesn't even mention Arachnoid! I despair

also omits art zoyd, moving gelatine plates, eskaton, weidorje, sandrose, pentacle, memoriance...

Currently loving Jacques Dutronc, La Femme, Lescop, Les Limiñanas.

A new Lescop album is out today. First in 8 years! Anyone heard?

Some details here: https://www.lesinrocks.com/musique/lescop-enfin-de-retour-avec-reve-parti-album-incisif-autant-quelegant-605290-31-01-2024/