Actually, when you think about it, France has always been sort of cool despite the their annoying language, inability to win wars and…ugh, mimes. However, they’ve usually been near the top in terms of fashion and some of the best food in the world originated somewhere in France. I’ve also found that French women are probably the only women on the planet that look cool when they’re smoking. It’s true. Rather than looking like ashtrays, they instead look mysterious and sexy.
What really puts the French over the edge is the fact that all the best dance tracks are from French artists or groups, led by the robotic house duo Daft Punk. I admit that I wasn’t into them until they became more mainstream in 1995 with Da Funk.
But since, their entire discography has been present on every iPod I’ve owned. Heck, even before that I had a couple Minidiscs with Daft Punk mixes on them.
As much as they rule, it’s not just Daft Punk that awesomes in France. More recently, there’s been Justice, which you might know best from D.A.N.C.E. and the accompanying t-shirt-morphing video. I, however, prefer this live version performed on Jimmy Kimmel live.
Their genius isn’t limited to their own CD. If you can find it, the Justice remix of Justin Timberlake’s Lovestoned is one of the hottest remixes I’ve heard all year, period. The last minute is just ridiculous. I’m still pissed I missed the chance to see these guys this year. This, the best song on the album, Phantom, would’ve been so damn sick to see live.
There’s all sorts of hot dance music coming from the French these days, mostly from label Ed Banger Records, purveyors of all that’s cool in France. Also check out Kavinsky, DJ Mehdi, SebastiAn and plenty of others.
They can’t point the Maginot Line in the correct direction but the French sure know their way around the turntables. I know that’s a lot of video’s to watch but if you’re going to check out just one, the live performance of Phantom or the Justice Lovestoned remix would be my pick. There’s no actual video for the latter but damn, the beat is sick. If you’re a fan of any sort of dance, house, or DJ sets like these, go check out these acts.
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Wow glad to see people are still discovering french house music… I thought it had pretty much died in 2002 or so… The huge artists like Cassius, Air, Daft Punk, Dimitri From Paris, Motor Bass were all huge back then but haven’t had success lately. I was always a HUGE Daft Punk fan, all the way back to Homework in 1997. In fact, it really helped shape who I am (that along with discovering Prodigy at around the same time). I really hate the way that it’s held against them that they’ve had some singles make it successfully in the mainstream.
I’ve been out of the loop completely, so it’s nice to discover new music from the genre I loved so much back in the day. And I’m glad to see people are still discovering that genre to this very day.
I guess there is a good thing about rap not being original at all… If someone hears a song they like, and find out that the original sounds very much the same, they go and check out the original and start to follow that group… I followed rap when it was good (prior to about 1995) and going back to who they sample, and the samples they sample, you can really learn a lot about good music, and learn about more artists.
I’ve been a fan of Daft Punk for awhile now but never really discovered anything else from France. Justice is the hot act right now. Go check out the album.
Not sure if I buy into anything “Pro France”, but this is pretty cool music.
I own an authentic WWII French rifle. It’s never been used or fired . . . only been dropped once
Thanks, your link to the LoveStoned remix led me to discover the Tiesto Remix version, which also rocks.
Interesting video here of french music huh …. its good … but for some of us in Africa ….. and especially in the Anglophone country like mine …. you hadly hear French music either on the Radio or even on Tv … you should be a die hard to go online and search for them yourself ..
This stuff brings mind Denki Groove lives from 10-20 years ago. There’s none of those I have on video in youtube but this gives vague idea, definetely far from their best stuff which is very diverse though: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mi2Dj6_eRk0
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