Why no French rock n roll?

i was so dumb

What did you learn?

Anyway, there's plenty of French rnr. It's just that most of it is not exported

It's not exported because it's not very good, though. The fact remains that the French are good at pop, not so good at rock. (Yes, vast generalisation, of course there must be good French rock bands out there etc. etc. Still.)

There's enough homegrown not-very-good rock to go round

hooray!

um..

well if you do a ratio good-bad rnr and you add the difficulty of exporting music in a foreign language, i think you'll fidn that the situation isn't that different.

Anyway, I guess I could accept the idea that the whole grittiness that's implied in rnr does not come off as cool to the french psyche as in the UK or in the US

I thought they loved the rnr in France?

yes. Doesn't make it french tho.

what kind of rnr are we talking about though?

All that leather jackets/ sunglasses/ fag hangin' out corner of mouth/ Keef bollocks. Or is that just the French habitués of ye olde Camden Town?

The "difficulty of exporting music in a foreign language" argument works for the mainstream, less so for the kind of people who read ILM, who may well listen to a lot of French stuff from Gainsbourg to Daft Punk but not to any French rock.

Tattoos, tight jeans, earrings, motorcycle boots, kerchiefs... dunno about the music mind you

i. the french love anything that is developed, structured, refined and practiced by experts, i.e. tennis, rugby, disco, wine, the plastic arts, painting, jazz, prostitution

ii. on the other hand, they love to be contrary and rub your nose in shit

iii. french people do not enjoy the minutemen or husker du

One day I will own that 150-odd disc Johnny Halliday singles box.

make sure you also get the johnny hallYday singles box

actually don't

France has become a big hotspot for Black Metal in recent times. They love Rock'n'Roll too.

interesting

yup!

Anyway, there isn't much French rock, not much Italian rock, and not much Spanish rock ... but you get some crazy rock from the UK, Germany, the Scandinavian countries, etc. You get the best pop and dance from France and Italy. Maybe rock is more of a Germanic rather than Latinate thing.

The last Phoenix lp was kinda rock

there are LOADS of french rock bands. especially at the moment. all the kids play in bands nowadays. they all suck though...

Pink Panzers?

Last year I was dropping of the other Redds and Blecchs at the airport and I saw some dudes who were clearly a band, although they had distinct mismatching styles, including one skinny George Michael-looking guy and one short Don Was-looking guy. I asked Don Was what the name of his band was and he said "Rock and Roll!" I said "no, the NAME of your band." He said "Rock and Roll!" again and pointed to another guys guitar case which had a bumper sticker on it that said "Rock and Roll." When I got home I tried to look them up online and thought: this must be the stupidest band name ever-they are ungoogleable. I finally found out who they were- they are French- when somebody told me one one of the guys showed up on the Gilmore Girls sequel.

There was another musician I recognized at the airport that day with a white cello case, he was much less ridiculous.

Magma were pretty damn great. But, significantly, they did not sing in French.

CRASH NORMAL, bootches!

Cheveu album less rock than hoped but give 'er a shot

there are lots of french rock bands, but they all sound like ersatz Kaiser Chiefs, who are already ersatz-ersatz ________.

it pisses me off that they don't sing in french, though. at least, none of my friends' bands sing in french: the midnight vultures, this is the hello monster!, bumble bees (last two are not really rnr)

Magma were pretty damn great. But, significantly, they did not sing in French.

Not terribly rock and roll either, to be frank

Magma were pretty damn great. But, significantly, they did not sing in French.
Haha. I think JW started a thread in that language once, but I can't find it.

why do european bands choose to write and perform songs in english?

doesn't anybody remember trust? chuck, maybe. man, now I really wanna hear some trust.

What about that indie pop band Autour de Lucie? Does that count? Probably not.

Trust

xpost
ahah, no baaderonixx, I wasn't talking about pkpz (who don't exist anymore, remember ? great loss for music, I must say !).

As for the bands I was talking about, most of them do sing in french. the scene has been tagged "les baby rockeurs".

and you all forgot two of the most famous french rock bands : rita mitsouko and noir desir !

i revived this because of hearing "andy" last weekend!

i think the case was being made that les rita mitsouko were more pop than rock, AleXTC, though i'm not sure i buy the distinction

i think there is something about the entire swathe of noisy, non-danceable post-punk, extending into hardcore and 90s indie rock, which just completely bypasses french people

... apart from Metal Urbain

yeah maybe this is changing though, or maybe i'm wrong

am fascinated by the concept of "baby rockeurs" and the embrace of indie more completely by the french in that it possibly points to the end of rock, at least in the form many of us are interested in it, i.e. as a constantly-becoming machine, rather than a finished product to be endlessly refined, turned over, polished (realize i'm veering dangerously close to s. reynolds territory here)

"miniscule hey" from bordeaux -

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=86920608

No mention of Alcest on this thread??

(I just did a quick search so could be wrong. They rock though.)

"it pisses me off that they don't sing in french, though. at least, none of my friends' bands sing in french"

its pretty difficult to sing r'n'r in french (or italian, by the way): english is the its natural language, just like melodrama sounds more convincing when sung in italian. "che gelida manina" isn't the same thing of "what an icy little hand".

that said there are tons of great (not necessarily "rock") french bands.

Alcest sings in French!

well, I was wondering about les rita but "c'est comme ca for instance" is clearly rock. but I don't see clearly the distinction between rock and pop, especially for acts who have a wide range of compositions.
as for post-punk, many bands went the electropop/cold/novo disco way, in France (reminds me of the "des jeunes gens modernes" exposition at the agnes b gallery in paris these days).
and metal urbain are friends of mine ! (but i'm not too fond of their music...)

i think there is something about the entire swathe of noisy, non-danceable post-punk, extending into hardcore and 90s indie rock, which just completely bypasses french people

I'm not sure that's true. I did a term of school in France in 1980, and the 12-year-olds were listening to rock (well they were listening to Kiss). Then in the 80s there was a lot of worship of the usual suspects, Velvet Underground, Doors etc. I don't think it's a question of French people then not appreciating rock or non-dance guitar music, it's a question of what transplants well into French culture. Rock is more of an alien form than pop, which is more easily related to a broad history of French popular music, with lots of French performers crossing over from chanson to pop in the 60s and 70s.

xpost: i. Metal Urbain played at the Hundred Club Festival where Sid put a girl's eye out by throwing a beerglass = THEY ARE PUNK HURRAH = not rock'n'roll obv

Mais non! The French punk rockers at the 100 Club festival were the Stinky Toys.

http://www.myspace.com/wauylosarrrghs

not french. still good.

Kiss weren't rock, they were a circus act that happen to play music!

Little Bob Story!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_rock

Other notes: There's a French series of psych comps called Freakout Totale that are pretty good, though they're francophone (so include Quebec etc.).

Once I get home, I'll be able to drag through the huge archive I found on SLSK from some user named Docteur Stein, which was all a bunch of 7"s in French, with a good half of them rock and roll (bands like Alex et les Lizards).

Bérurier Noir are pretty fun, though they're on the goofy quasi-political new wave tip, at least as I've been able to figure out. I had a pal send me a mixtape of their stuff once and I've downloaded a bit over the years.

2100-ish words on Les Rita Mitsouko, Niagara, Elmer Food Beat, Indochine, Les Négresses Vertes, Mylene Farmer, Noir Désir, Les Hatepinks.

http://www.spin.com/articles/french-modern-rock-essentials-phoenix-daft-punk/