The singer, born Christophe Martichon, hails from Carpentras, a town in the Provence region of southeast France. A smash hit, the play enjoyed sold-out runs and tours across Europe. It went diamond more than platinum , selling over 1. His father, a musician and jazz lover, passed on his taste for music to him very early on. From the age of six, he studied the violin, the drums and devoted himself to singing. A former athlete who excelled in both tennis and skiing, Christophe was stopped in his tracks by chronic polyarthritis which immobilized him at the age of He took advantage of this forced immobilization to learn the acoustic guitar and the harmonica.
She arrived in Paris to spend a week with her sister and was delighted to find out that her sibling managed to score a couple of tickets for Le Roi Soleil , the hottest thing to hit Paris until climate change. My vision of hell is an eternal soundtrack of Rodgers and Hammerstein playing in a lava-surrounded prison cell where Stephen Sondheim lyrics are seared into the walls, with Carol Channing, Ethel Merman and the entire cast of Hamilton as my cellmates.
A year or so later, soon after relocating to Seattle, I decided to spend an afternoon acclimatizing myself to Emerald City culture by what else? I sat there, butt glued to my seat, ears glued to the enchanting music, oblivious to the chatter and clatter around me. I stood there for a while rummaging through my brain. Mon Paradis? Non, je vais essayer de le trouver ici. Merci, maman. Au revoir.
After driving to half a dozen record stores all over Seattle I finally found the album. I played it in its entirety when I got home and every day for a month or so. France has a great reputation for many things revolutions, stifling bureaucracy, topless sunbathing but pop music is not among those. Despite being the country that produced the genius of Daft Punk, the breathtaking soundscapes of Air, and barking sixties sex dwarf Serge Gainsbourg, little French music is heard outside Francophone countries.
So where does this negativity surrounding French pop come from? In my experience, a lot of it comes from French people themselves, who are highly critical of the musical output of their own country. Which is a bit like your mum forcing you to eat your vegetables before you get any ice cream. The author goes on to review several contemporary French pop songs and the only song that earns his love is from an album I reviewed and adored a few years back: Chaleur Humaine by Christine and the Queens.
