A Guide to French Music

With all eyes on France this summer, we present a celebration of the nation’s musical riches—a melodic parade of the timeless chanson legends, pop enfants terribles, rap wordsmiths, and electronic geniuses that have put French music on the global map.

For many of the French music greats, magic has come from saluting the classics while breaking with tradition—and it’s perhaps that irresistible combination of poetic melodies and defiance that has made French music so influential. Even against the most romantic backdrop, the revolutionary spirit of French music’s most legendary names packs a punch, whether via Serge Gainsbourg—whose masterfully orchestrated, risqué melodic attacks on the pop system, simultaneously sold millions and got banned in several countries—or bad boy and Elvis fan Johnny Hallyday, who gave French rock ’n’ roll its core identity via larger-than-life performances across nearly six decades. And, too, in the soaring spirit of one of France’s earliest—and most enduring—superstars. Nicknamed “The Little Sparrow,” Édith Piaf had a voice of hair-raising intensity and sweeping sentiment that took her from Parisian nightclubs to the global stage following the 1946 breakout hit “La vie en rose,” a swooning ballad that captured the post-World War II euphoria of the late 1940s. Piaf was the quintessential voice of chanson (literal translation: “song”; otherwise meaning lyric-driven music by French singer-songwriters), a heart-shattering chronicler of life in Paris’ low-lit corners and working-class neighborhoods. And with all of them, she elevated a whole genre. Mining the theatricality and playfulness of cabaret and music hall—and delighting in the precious beauty of the quotidian while plumbing the depths of human pain—chanson revolved around the French language’s inherent lyricism and romance, seamlessly draped in fluid, eloquent melodies. It’s majestic in Piaf’s unforgettable “Non, je ne regrette rien” (1960); playful in the music of her mentee Yves Montand; and the vehicle for star power in the work of St. Louis-born Joséphine Baker, who found refuge from racism in Paris in the 1920s and became one of Europe’s most feted entertainers, and one of chanson’s great interpreters. Chanson, too, evolved with the times—and continued to birth new stars. See the satirical, socially conscious, anti-authoritarian chanson of guitar-wielding poet Georges Brassens, who rose in the ’50 and ’60s, or the music of trendsetting Cairo-born singer and actor Dalida, who consistently revolutionized the genre with poppy ’50s chanson, twist, and Egyptian folk sung in multiple languages, and who later sparked a francophone disco craze. (There is, though, perhaps no greater French disco innovator than Claude François, who embraced the genre as it crossed over to France from the US in the ’70s; see his irresistible 1977 track “Magnolias for ever”). Jazz-trained guitarist, chansonnier, and humorist Henri Salvador, meanwhile, recorded the first French rock ’n’ roll songs in the late ’50s—and even Gainsbourg’s music had roots in chanson and jazz, only for him to become France’s supreme pop provocateur with ventures into orchestral and African music, dub, reggae, and New Wave. Chanson, in short, paved the way for some of the nation’s most totemic figures, who changed music—in France and beyond—forever.

Let’s roll back to the 1960s, when pop and rock influences from the UK and the US flooded into France. One outcome was “yéyé,” inspired, literally, by the clarion calls of “yeah! yeah!” flying in from over the Channel from the likes of The Beatles. A lighthearted, lightly counter-cultural new genre, “yéyé” swept a postwar France eager for a wave of fizzing energy, launching a raft of fresh-faced stars in the 1960s. Françoise Hardy and Jacques Dutronc were among them, eventually outgrowing the sound’s youthful style to deliver some of the most enduring melodies in French pop and rock (Dutronc’s galloping, flute-laced “Il est cinq heures, Paris s’éveille,” Hardy’s heartbroken “Voilà”). From the ’60s, there was another shift in French music, as “variety” became the name of the game. Rather than mastering a specific style, variété virtuosos threw their songwriting superpowers into crafting delicious melodies and pitch-perfect, radio-friendly choruses designed to thrill mass audiences. Variété ushered in three hit-packed decades during which chanson absorbed and reimagined global trends, and reached new commercial heights in the process. In the ’70s, the time was ripe for a new generation of profoundly melodic songsmiths to reclaim the spotlight. Penning her own songs, a rarity at the time, Véronique Sanson self-produced masterpieces such as her 1974 rock-oriented record Le Maudit. She built a melodic bridge between French music and contemporary influences from across the pond (her evocative piano ballad “Une nuit sur son épaule” was even later sampled on JAY-Z’s 2008 track “History”). Funk grooves and dancing synths, meanwhile, reigned supreme in the ’70s and ’80s. One of variété’s hardest-working ambassadors, classically trained pianist, singer-songwriter, and producer Michel Berger infused the era’s popular smashes with emotional resonance and melodic warmth. He was also the musical powerhouse behind the showstopping 1978 cyberpunk rock opera Starmania, which catapulted another synth-pop voyager to fame: Daniel Balavoine, a beloved, deeply expressive voice of the ’70s and ’80s, who tragically passed in 1986. Balavoine’s music lives on, however, in classics such as “Lipstick Polychrome”—a swaying pop paean to makeup for women or men. Eventually, variété fell out of fashion, as younger fans rejected its all-powerful rule and sought music avenues beyond mainstream pop, but its spirit is still being maintained today by disco and electro-pop wizards such as Louane, Clara Luciani, Juliette Armanet, and the Belgian-born Angèle.

As the Chicago house and UK techno fires spread in the ’80s and ’90s, French musicians tuned into the rising dance frequencies and communicated via groundbreaking sounds sprinkled with big beat, acid jazz, and echoes of French disco. Paris was the place to be in the late ’90s and 2000s—its sonically restless musicians and record labels creating a new kind of cool that soon burst from clubland into the mainstream. But these weren’t just ordinary dance jams; these had that French Touch. Among the little-known musicians doing their electronic Homework in ’90s bedroom studios, enigmatic duo Daft Punk was working hard in service only of its impeccable instincts and “Da Funk.” Hiding behind futuristic robot helmets in public, Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo brought humor and wit to the dance floor, contrasting their impenetrable exterior with fuzzy vintage grooves, spine-tingling basslines, and bulletproof hooks peppered with playful, machine-powered vocals. Following their 1997 debut, 2001’s Discovery birthed tracks like the motivational “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” and the evergreen party-starter “One More Time.” Then, in 2013, they unleashed their airwaves-dominating, Pharrell-featuring smash “Get Lucky.” Rarely has an electronic duo been as influential, in as many genres, as Daft Punk, whose split in 2021 will do little to dent their legacy. Another duo with admittedly fewer technical abilities, but plenty of undeniable swagger, is Justice, who forged a link between dance music and indie rock, inviting kids in skinny jeans onto the dance floor with hits including “D.A.N.C.E,” from 2007’s Justice. “When we started, French house music was really about precision,” Justice’s Xavier de Rosnay told Zane Lowe in 2024. “All these guys, they really had a house music background, and we arrived, and we really came more from rock ’n’ roll. And the biggest records for us, at the time, were more like Zongamin, The Rapture, White Stripes, and we were thinking, ‘OK, we’re going to make music that sounds more like garage rock than actual electronic music.’” Justice, Daft Punk, Air, Kavinsky: These are artists united by that effortless, impossible-to-pin-down French cool. Yet, France’s electronic music has conquered the mainstream in more ways than one. At the opposite end of the electronic spectrum—and with more of a thud than a touch—the likes of EDM powerhouse David Guetta and serial hitmaker DJ Snake have found mass appeal, dominating big festival stages and kickstarting viral trends, with no end to their reign in sight.

Although France had strong local alternative currents spearheaded by the likes of Parisian New Wave duo Les Rita Mitsouko, their exposure, particularly in the English-speaking world, was often limited and little understood. Until the ’90s, that is, when Phoenix slowly rose from Versailles to alter the course of French alternative music. And it did it not by rejecting the band’s Frenchness, but by embracing it. “When we started, it was really a curse to be a French guy trying to be a musician,” the band’s Thomas Mars told Apple Music in 2022. “At some point, we thought we had to find a way to turn the tables and make it something quite unique, the fact that we were French…we had to embrace our Frenchness.” That is perhaps what helped the quartet leave the 2010 Grammys with the Best Alternative Music Album award for their fourth full-length, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, a record packed with kinetic indie pop, twinkling synths, and enduring hits. It was French—but not francophone—alternative at its finest. Others rose up at the turn of the millennium with a blend of variété, electronic, and indie rock, as well as sharp songwriting sensibilities, spiritual leanings, social anxieties, and a light sway shared with their buddies over at French Touch. Think louche yet visionary multi-instrumentalist (and unlikely one-time Eurovision contestant) Sébastien Tellier, whose 2005 track “La Ritournelle” is every bit as iridescent now as it was then; cold wave disciple Lescop; six-piece L’Impératrice, who drew on funk and disco to create an irresistible pop sound, or soulful Afro-Cuban alchemists Ibeyi. Then, in 2014, emerged perhaps France’s most famous alt-pop visionary to date: Christine and the Queens, who broke through with debut album Chaleur Humaine, and—assisted by deft dance moves and a fierce commitment to evolution of his art and self—rose to become one of global alternative’s most dynamic, and surprising, stars. If embracing one’s Frenchness was the key to opening new gateways for the immense talent taking over the scene, one thing is certain: This time around, global audiences are willing to listen.

No tour of French music is complete, of course, without the story of French hip-hop. Strutting in the footsteps of their US pioneers, influential artists including Suprême NTM and IAM laid the building blocks for French hip-hop from Paris to Marseille in the ’90s. Largely led by a wave of fiercely talented second-generation immigrants, the burgeoning rap scene amplified the voices of marginalized communities and spoke out about discrimination, injustice, and brutality across torrents of liberating bars. On the other hand, dexterous wordsmith MC Solaar flirted with the genre’s softer side in tracks such as the wistful, acid-jazz-inflected paean “Caroline.” In the new millennium, French hip-hop was in good hands, with the likes of Booba, Diam’s, GIMS, PNL, Gazo, and Soolking, to name but a few, juggling old-school beats, flavors from Africa and the Maghreb, cloud rap, R&B, pop, and drill. In doing so, these artists catapulted rap from the fringes of the banlieues (the suburbs surrounding French cities) to the most streamed genre in France. Taking that mantle forward now? “La Queen.” Born into a family of Malian griots (musicians and storytellers), Aya Nakamura wove zouk and Afrobeats into French pop and R&B in record-breaking singles that placed her, in the late 2010s, at the top of the game. “I think it has to do more with the fact that I have, in my manner, in my sound, in my way of being, the look of a leader,” she told Apple Music when asked to explain her honorary title. “I have the air of someone in charge, in any case, who directs her life, more than a follower.” It’s that unshakable self-belief that, along with her genre-blurring, slang-fueled sound, has often thrown Nakamura into the center of heated debates. But at a time of demonstrations addressing violence against women in France, she became an empowering figure for a young, diverse generation craving change. She undoubtedly speaks the language of millions of fans who have taken her pop global (who helped her become an Apple Music Artist of the Year in 2021). More than that, she’s at the forefront of a modern French sound that continues to surprise, shift, and reinvent itself.