France’s far-right Front National FN is planning to sue Madonna over a video that shows party leader and former presidential candidate Marine Le Pen with a swastika on her forehead.
The extreme right have no problem with free speech when they want to spout hate, now do they? Good job, Madonna.
Read the rest [...]
A couple years after his album Préliminaires, featuring some French classics (which we covered here), Iggy Pop is about to release Après, a collection of classic torch songs, ballads and French variété. We just love the way he wraps his destroyed voice around those French songs. Seems somehow appropriate.
Read the complete [...]
If your Valentine happens to be both a Francophile and a cineaste, I think s/he might be quite pleased with Universal-France’s three-disc compilation, Nouvelle Vague: Chansons et Musiques de Films. The set includes selections from soundtracks composed by Michel Legrand, Georges Delerue, Miles Davis, Maurice Jarre, Serge Gainsbourg, Bernard Herrmann, and on and [...]
We could wander these virtual stacks for days! So far, the Bibliothèque nationale de France has digitized more than one million works, including books, maps, manuscripts, images, periodicals, scores and sound recordings, and made them available for free to the public at the Gallica digital library. This is France’s answer to Google [...]
Guess all those Lipton commercials convinced someone he was the right man for the job…
Read the rest at Javert Update.
Diddy is a self-proclaimed Francophile: with an album titled “Last Train to Paris” and premium vodka Ciroc attached to his famous name, you’d think he’d be riding around in a striped shirt, by now, baguette in tow. But it’s precisely this French fascination that recently got the hip-hop mogul and his crew into trouble [...]
We are blown away by this guy. You can buy his CDs and the DVD of this program at the Francophilia Amazon store.
The work of Serge Gainsbourg, the large-nosed, Gitanes-smoking French icon whose jazzy, bohemian songs exemplified a sexually liberated France of the 1960s and 1970s, is enjoying a resurgence in the most unlikely of places — perfume ads.
Read the rest at Reuters.
Son of Jacques Higelin, an icon of French variété, Arthur H is one of our absolute favorite French singers. This is a fan video mashup using Chanson de Satie, which Arthur H recorded with Feist.
You can get some of his albums, including our favorite, adieu tristesse, on which the [...]
…[T]he epic mess of Piaf’s love life, as well as the scale of her talent, make this story something special, while her brutal Dickensian childhood virtually ensured that she would spend her adult life in a doomed quest for perfect love and security.
Complete review at The Barnes & Noble Review.
We cannot express with mere words our adoration of Luce, whom we wrote about when she won La Nouvelle Star in 2010. She’s a character and a half, with the voice of a goddess, and her first album will be out on May 23. Till then, on her official site, a short comic [...]
We promised more révélations according to the Victoires de la musique shortlist. Meet Guillaume Grand, singing Toi et moi from his new album of the same name. You can buy Toi et moi at the Francophilia Amazon Store!
If you’re a fan of Serge Gainsbourg, who is arguably one of the best French songwriters of the 20th century, you won’t want to miss the soon-to-be-released 20th anniversary collection.
270 songs (21 unpublished titles or versions) 60-page illustrated biography 20 photos and manuscripts (295 x 295 mm) 17 CDs of his [...]
Every year the Victoires de la Musique (French equivalent of the Grammy Awards) identifies the révélations of the preceding year; new artists with star quality. We’ve already introduced you to Zaz and Camélia Jordana, both of whom appear on this year’s short list. FéFé, another coup de coeur of ours, gives you [...]
We are just madly in love with Zaz. Heard her on the radio the other day. Gypsy jazz meets Piaf by way of pop… Here’s an acoustic version of Les Passants. You can buy her eponymous album at the Francophilia Amazon Store.
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