Friday's French music break - Étienne Daho, "En surface"

Friday's French music break this week is from a singer who first broke on to the music scene back in 1981.

It's "En surface", the most recent single from Étienne Daho and taken from his 2013 album "Les Chansons de l'innocence retrouvée"

Étienne Daho (screenshot from official video of "En surface".

As you can tell, Daho has been around a while and has built up a firm and loyal fan base and has become (in the words of the promotional blurb) "one of the most influential personalities to have emerged on the French scene in the last 30 years"

Part of the problem (for those not quite so enamoured of his music) is that Daho seems to have been "singing"  (inverted commas entirely intentional as he has a "voice" that surely only the French could "love") variations of the same song since the 1980s.

And in fact, he appears to be well and truly stuck in that era, offering up little that is sparklingly different, not to mention tuneful and instead relying on a tried and tested recipe of electro-pop "synth-driven and rock-surf influenced" (his English language Wikipedia entry, so you know it must be right). music which has, admittedly, served him well over the decades.

Very well in fact with every album turning gold or platinum and a slew of successful singles.

Granted "the familiarity factor" could probably be said to be true for many artists who've proven their longevity, but in the process, Daho just sounds too moody and bored when he sings. Don't you think?

"En surface" is one of those songs that you hear and wish would be over quickly because the melody and the "low whispery voice" have a combined soporific effect (for some) which will simply send you off to the Land of Nod.

All right. That's not exactly fair - just an opinion.

There are plenty around who have enjoyed, and continue to do so, Daho's music. And the album from which this track was taken, received some pretty good reviews when it was released.

Writing in Le Journal du dimanche, critic Éric Mandel described "Les Chansons de l'innocence retrouvée" as an "ambitious and elegant album" and one that was "sumptuous with songs that stood out for their emotional power."

Oh well.

And then there are the diehard fans, some of whose comments on the "En surface" video on YouTube are equally gushing

"Magnifique chanson , magnifique clip, magnifique chanteur, magnifique voix !" for example. Really, you shouldn't need to run that throught Google translate.

Or

"Une très belle chanson."

And

"Ma chanson préférée de l'album.....octobre est encore loin  pour revivre la magie de ses concerts."

Ah October...and the "Diskönoir" tour which will, over the next few months, see Daho take the show on the road around France (with three dates at Olympia in Paris) Belgium and Luxembourg, plus a date in London on October 23.

Ready? Judge for yourselves.

Actually it's not so bad after a dozen or so hearings....

Friday's French music break - Margaux Avril, "Murder on the dance floor"

Friday's French music break this week is from the appropriately named (given the month) 22-year-old Parisian singer Margaux Avril (French for "April" of course) - "Murder on the dance floor".

Margaux Avril (screenshot from "L'air du rien")

Yes it's a song with which you're probably familiar - originally released in 2001 by the British singer Sophie Ellis-Bextor who co-wrote it, and for whom it was a major international hit with an unforgettable and wonderfully naughty and hammed-up video to accompany it.

Need a reminder?

Here it is.

Avril's acoustic version of a song Ellis-Bextor recorded when she was also 22 years old doesn't have the same dance feel to it of course, but the groove remains.

And Avril's voice has that grain of roughness and quality of sound that's maybe missing from her first single currently delighting radio listeners across the country, "L'air de rien".

That's a charming pop number successfully designed to stick in your head (regardless) and which might make you think initially you're listening to a more sugary version of the Canadian singer Cœur de pirate (Béatrice Martin) - but without all those tattoos of course.

Margaux Avril (screenshot from "L'air du rien")

All right, Avril might not be "The Voice" - that's being left to TV viewers to decide in the second series currently airing on TF1.

But she can most definitely sing (and sing well) and has been signed to the French record label AZ - an affiliate of Universal - which should guarantee that she'll at least be able to carve out a reasonable career for herself - if not something more than that.

Some of the acoustic cover versions available on her official site prove she add her own personal touch to songs that have very different musical backgrounds and, more importantly perhaps, that she has a sound other than one "produced" in the studio.

Take a listen to her rendition of French singer Étienne Daho's 1984 hit "Week-end à Rome" for example. Avril definitely breathes new life into a gaspingly awful electro-pop pap.

Or better still there's her version of the excellent US rock group Kings of Leon's "Sex is on fire"

If you want to find out more about Avril's next single "Lunatique" or when and where she's playing, scoot over to her Facebook page.

And while we await the release of her first album, here she is with that promised acoustic version of "Murder on the dance floor" - this week's Friday's French music break.

Enjoy.