French rock groups

[Apparently, it's from their '95 album "Plug", that got this great review on AMG:
AMG REVIEW: This gigantic album is the band's masterpiece. For their first real LP, they collaborated with Albini, and it was a success. Along the way, you will find samples from Blue Sunshine by the Glove. The sleeve of the disc is orange and is bleaching in the sun. The version of "You Cry" is not as good as the one on Fuse, even if it does have a better sound. The picture printed on the CD is a vinyl. On the vinyl, there is no CD printed. "Many Things" and "Exactly" are the two only songs by the band you can find live, on the EP Pop, and they are both in this album. It is quite impossible to understand what Armand sings because he does not really sing a an existing language, but in a mix of English and phonetics. You should get this disc ASAP. — Romain Guillou]

"The picture printed on the CD is a vinyl. On the vinyl, there is no CD printed."

Actually the whole punk/new-wave was quite interesting, Elli & Jacno were a rather risqué thing to do in France.

Today Heliogabale are really good. So were Prohibition, Bastard and Sister Iodine too. I was told that this band named Chevreuil would soon be produced by Albini.

But to precisely answer your question, Athlete, Noir Desir is the shit.

There's heaps of progrock too, but I guess that's not what you want.

Time to go off to check the dictionary, as I have no idea if I used the word "posterity" correctly.

The whole of their discography (excepting a fantastic early single "Sangria") I would not characterize as rock

Tanger
Chelsea
Emma
Married monk
Taxi Girl
Olivenstein
Luke
Purr
Toupidek limonade
Dionysos
Tue-Loup
Kat Onoma
Diabologum
Programme
Little rabbits
Complot bronswick
City kids
Dazibao
Dogs
Lucrate milk
Knicrik
Kid pharaon
Vera Clouzot
Well spotted
Jean-Louis Murat (he's not a band but he sings about girls)

I've also bought a French sampler a few weeks back and it featured a song called Aujourd'hui, Maintenant by Experience. They are more like Muse or Placebo.

French heavy metal! Covered by Anthrax!

Yes, they did - but the best part of Shakin' Street was American: Ross the Boss!!!

Plastic Bertrand was sort of interesting...

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.

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.

Magma's Live is being reissued with bonus tracks.

that's cool but they're the same bonus tracks that have been on the cds since seventh first issued them in '89 :)

https://www.discogs.com/Aquaserge-Laisse-%C3%87a-%C3%8Atre/master/1129921

happy bastille day

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XNpsjpOI8A

\m/

Happy Bastille Day mf

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhQkku7jLfo

Here's a great, ear-opening article about the French underground:

https://thequietus.com/articles/26936-french-underground-music-1970s

Any good compilations covering this era? Seems ripe for Soul Jazz to do something similar to their stellar krautrock samplers.

There was a post recently about a compilatiom based on the NWW list which was all French music from that era. Check the NWW List thread.

As I said on that thread, I spent some time a few years ago listening to a lot of avant garde French rock from that era and though there's a lot of great stuff, I don't think there's as much of it as there was in Germany at the same time.

That's an interesting article, but I've tried to get into Magma at least a half dozen times and they suuuuuck. And the Pinhas/Heldon albums I've heard (old stuff as well as recent music, including collaborations with Merzbow and other folks) are just weirdly static and bland.

Yeah Iceland is the only Pinhaus thing I’ve dug

It’s pretty “static” though

The new Feu ! Chatterton furthers cements their status as the Radiohead de la nouvelle chanson française.

Presumably they sing in French!

They do, they do, and Arthur Teboul is an especially fine lyricist.

Hauts, hauts garcons

I do miss the more overt rawk stylings of their debut, though. They struck just the right balance on that one.

I'm appreciating what could be perceived as a risk taken with taste level, although that said, more an indicator of different transcanal attitudes to kitsch

I just heard yerman yell 'UNI-ROYAUME', wonder what he could have been saying lol

That's a very diplomatic way of putting it – perhaps the Rejoin campaign will win out in the end.

Besides, as their name indicates, these five lads are very fond of your side of the Manche.

oh I didn't know there was a new one, thanks for the heads-up!

The final four songs are refreshingly strong for a 1h10m album. 'Laissons filer' may be the highlight.

Granted, the closer is a reprise of the opener. His delivery of 'attraper le bluetooth' makes me chuckle every time.

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/