[Free Talk]

[Watachy]

Facts

In facts, most of french people/speakers doesn't listen to french songs anymore. A large amount of french artist started to sing in english a few years ago, and yet the only french singers that still sing in french aren't that popular or have a huge carreer as singer behind them (which means a huge fanbase too).
But, you have some "idols" for each music style i guess, what are you interested in ? I can give some examples of people that marked rock'n'roll or pop cultures as french artists.

[Mylee]

Bonjour!

I'm sorry if this is the wrong place to post but my question is French specific.

I'm looking for some inspiration to create a French inspired character and I'd like to get some advice from the perspective of people who speak French. Do you have a favorite artist or band that features a French vocalist? What are some of your favorite French songs and do you have any suggestions that would include artists that engage particularly cerebral or deeply emotional material?

Thank you and I'm sorry if it's a faux pas to type in English on the French forum.

Merci!

Mylene Farmer

[Rhomagus]

Mylene Farmer

Merci!

I will begin here. Thank you. ^^b

[Kingmanath]

Hum on a dit chanteur, pas gémisseur *sort en courant *

[Celef]

Disons qu'elle a un bel univers graphique

[Eldevern]

Mylène Farmer is not a bad choice, she has a graphic univers (as drawer) that is not far from Saint-Exupéry style.

@Kingmanath

Vilain, tu sors ->[] A la broche le lalafell! Non mais!

[Ceasaria]

Calogero

[Celef]

Well for the well known and actual I'de say :
- Jean-Jacques Goldman : His voice is...well lets say "special" but his text are really beautifull most of the time (he also wrote one of Celine Dion Album called "d'eux" which is, according to wikipedia, called "the french album" in US, a piece of art in the writting *.*).

- Stromae, not a not a french singer but he does sing in french and has beautifull text too, like the well know "Papaoute" or "formidable"

- Zazie also did a couple of nice songs, like for example "Je suis un homme" "Zen" or "A ma place" feat Axel Bauer

You should also try :
Linda Lemay "le plus fort c'est mon père" always makes me cry
Daniel Balavoine : The guy was a poet with "l'Aziza" or "Mon fils ma bataille"....not sure he even did a song that was not beautifull xD
Angun : I really like "La neige au Sahara" and "Etre une femme"

I just hope you understand french more than just a little bit cause those artists might be difficult to understand for non native (and even for native sometimes xD)

In facts, most of french people/speakers doesn't listen to french songs anymore. A large amount of french artist started to sing in english a few years ago, and yet the only french singers that still sing in french aren't that popular or have a huge carreer as singer behind them (which means a huge fanbase too).

And i'll add that, nowaday, we do not really have "good" artist, it's most of the time, the same thing again and again and again :/

[Wanzer]

Matmatah !! o/
So many good songs with them, even recently with Les demoiselles de loctudy or Triceratops. But there is also Emma, La cerise, la fille du chat noir, bande à part, Les moutons, Dernière journée en mer, and so much more. It's, maybe, just a little bit different from what you are looking for, i guess. But... Yeah, Matmatah.

[Rhomagus]

Merci beaucoup!

Thank you for all the responses! Those are exactly the kinds of suggestions I was looking for. I will update this post to show my responses to your replies. Thank you so much. This makes me very happy!

In facts, most of french people/speakers doesn't listen to french songs anymore. A large amount of french artist started to sing in english a few years ago, and yet the only french singers that still sing in french aren't that popular or have a huge carreer as singer behind them (which means a huge fanbase too).
But, you have some "idols" for each music style i guess, what are you interested in ? I can give some examples of people that marked rock'n'roll or pop cultures as french artists.

This is what I was afraid of, but I think I've got a good basis to start from based on the responses given. To respond to your question. I am interested in rock n' roll. If you're familiar with some Western artists from the US such as Nirvana, Soundgarden, Stone Temple Pilots, Tori Amos, Sleater-Kinney, Garbage, and the Deftones. All of those are rock that I'd listen to back in the 90's and still do to this day. I have some newer artists that I'm interested in as well but I'm most familiar with these kinds of artists and this genre.

I listen to other music as well. I really like rock and pop music from the UK as well, like Muse, Depeche Mode, Sting, the Sundays, Sneaker Pimps, Radiohead, Blur, and Oasis, but like I said in my other post, I'm mainly looking to broaden my horizons so I'm looking for other sounds too. I really liked the Mylene Farmer suggestion as the first youtube video I came across was with her doing a duet with Sting and I thought that was a nice song as I'm already familiar with Sting and I thought they did well together despite the mixing of English and French.

Calogero

*This video is not available in your country*

Oh no! I will find a way!

EDIT: I found a song by him. Very nice voice. I really like the accompanying music as well. I really liked the baseline in "Le portrait". I will continue to study this artist. Merci!
EDIT #2: I found another song. I like the minimalism. I don't understand it, but it sounds lovely.

Well for the well known and actual I'de say :
- Jean-Jacques Goldman : His voice is...well lets say "special" but his text are really beautifull most of the time (he also wrote one of Celine Dion Album called "d'eux" which is, according to wikipedia, called "the french album" in US, a piece of art in the writting *.*).

- Stromae, not a not a french singer but he does sing in french and has beautifull text too, like the well know "Papaoute" or "formidable"

- Zazie also did a couple of nice songs, like for example "Je suis un homme" "Zen" or "A ma place" feat Axel Bauer

You should also try :
Linda Lemay "le plus fort c'est mon père" always makes me cry
Daniel Balavoine : The guy was a poet with "l'Aziza" or "Mon fils ma bataille"....not sure he even did a song that was not beautifull xD
Angun : I really like "La neige au Sahara" and "Etre une femme"

I just hope you understand french more than just a little bit cause those artists might be difficult to understand for non native (and even for native sometimes xD)



And i'll add that, nowaday, we do not really have "good" artist, it's most of the time, the same thing again and again and again :/

Oh! So much to research! Thank you! Merci! Wonderful start. I'd forgotten about Celine Dion but I am aware of her music. Thank you. Unfortunately, as I'm sure you could probably tell, my French is not nearly as good as I'd like it to be. I learned a little bit in the early 2000's but forgot most of it, and my writing is worse than my speech if you could believe that. I am really liking the suggestions offered so far though so I think I'll be well entertained as I begin to learn again.

Again, merci beaucoup.

EDIT: Wow! Thank you very much. This is exactly the kind of writing I was looking for. Even though I don't know french the translations are still quite deep. I haven't listened to everything yet but I really liked Stromae and especially the song you suggested by Zazie, "Je suis en homme". A particularly notable part that I might need to "lift" for some inspiration...

"I am master of the fire and the game
The master of the world and behold what I've done
A frozen land, a scorched land
the earth of man that men abandon"

Tres magnafique! Merci! Thematically it reminds me of Pearl Jam's "Do the Evolution"

Matmatah !! o/
So many good songs with them, even recently with Les demoiselles de loctudy or Triceratops. But there is also Emma, La cerise, la fille du chat noir, bande à part, Les moutons, Dernière journée en mer, and so much more. It's, maybe, just a little bit different from what you are looking for, i guess. But... Yeah, Matmatah.

This is precisely the kind of music I would listen to on my own. I really liked Dernière journée en mer. I have it on a loop at the present moment. Unfortunately I had to rely on Google translate to translate the lyrics, which I'm sure doesn't give the song any justice, but it's better than nothing. Their videos are also entertaining so thank you very much for this suggestion.

Merci beaucoup!