Ten French language albums for your next car journey

September 19, 2009 at 3:45 pm

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I was supposed to be playing in the first round of my club’s annual tennis tournament today but as it happens my doubles partner is in Poland – something I did not find out until 15 minutes after the match was supposed to start.

As a result I am sat here in the bar and thought I would make a quick post of my top five French language albums. The problem is, as I have just discovered, five isn’t enough – I need at least fifteen to cover the variety of music necessary to feel happy with the list. So instead, I have flicked through my collection and selected ten albums that I would take right here, right now if I were heading off on an epic seven hour car journey (I live in England so seven hours is indeed epic, although I realise that many Americans will gladly drive seven hours for a taco (whatever the hell that is)).

So here they are, no in-depth analysis, not even ordered in terms of preference, just what I’d take with me in the car to keep me sane on my way to wherever I was going – just one album from each artist to try to add a bit of variety.

I’ve hammered my way through this post so it is quite raw and I haven’t had time to include MP3 clip widgets for each album but I will do so over the next day or two (where possible of course, Amazon doesn’t have everything unfortunately).

I’m still upset that there’s a couple of albums I’d be leaving behind…

Ça Me Vexe, Mademoiselle K.

Brilliant. Although it tails off a bit for me towards the end of the album.

Grand Soir, La Ruda

One of my favourite albums of all time. In any language. Perfect mix of classic 2 tone, ska, rock, folk and all manner of other stuff that I love. If they’d managed to mix some heavy rock in there as well, à la 24 images/seconde, well, I might have exploded with joy.

L’autre bout du monde , Emily Loizeau

A couple of the tracks are a bit embarrassing to be heard playing with your windows down – “Is this a children’s song?” one of my friends recently asked – but an otherwise excellent album with some great singing, cello playing and general jazziness.

Bonnieux, Feet Peals

Very upbeat in the same fashion as a couple of English bands I really like – The Men They Couldn’t Hang and The Housemartins.

Blonde comme moi, BB Brunes

I’m not sure why I like this album – on first hearing it sounding a bit hollow and I’m not a fan of bands like The Strokes who also play in this kind of half-thrashy three-piece sounding way – but I do like it.

L’école du micro d’argent, IAM

My favourite French hip-hop album by far. I’m currently listening to and discovering a lot more French hip hop. I’ll let you know how that goes.

La saison des amours, Louisy Joseph

Brilliant on first listening – great deep bass R&B – but grew a bit tired of it quite quickly. Would be taking it with me on the journey because I haven’t heard it for a while.

Dances of resistance, Babylon Circus

Reggae/Ska. One of the very first French language albums I ever owned. A lot of English on here as well (and nearly English “There is so much things to do”), but it qualifies.

L’absolutely meilleur of Renaud

One of the few non-hip-hop artists from the French genre of singers who have never thought it necessary actually to sing that I really like. I’m afraid I’ve never been a fan of Serge Gainsbourg, the king of the non-singing, mumbling genre – I can’t even listen to him without getting tense.

Les Trois Accords, Grand champion international de course

You’ve gotta love these Canadian guys – come on, the very first line of the album is Je suis entré dans un garde-fou avec mon auto.