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.

Friday's French music break - Melissa Nkonda, "Nouveaux horizons"

Friday's French music break this week is proof - if it were needed - that there's occasionally life after TV talent shows - even for those who don't win.

It comes from Melissa Nkonda - an "also ran" in the now defunct Nouvelle Star, the French version of Pop Idol.

Melissa Nkonda (screenshot from "Nouveaux horizons" video)

Nkonda took part in season seven of Nouvelle Star in 2009, making it through to the final 15 and then the top 10 but being but eliminated just three weeks into the show's run.

That obviously didn't stop her though and a year later she entered the (non-televised) search for talent launched in 2010 by the French record label AZ, which belongs to the Universal group.

The 20-year-old ran out one of the joint winners of "Je veux signer chez AZ", landing a contract with the label and the chance to record an album.



Since then Nkonda has been on roll.

The album, "Nouveaux horizons", was released earlier this year and includes a track, "J'ai fait tout ça pour vous" featuring one of the most recently rising stars of the British music scene VV Brown and a version of Nkondo's first hit single also entitled "Nouveaux horizons" with the critically acclaimed French rapper, Soprano.

The original of that first single is a catchy, funky uptempo number with an infectious beat and sung in a mixture of English and French which has already been a Top 30 hit in France, Belgium and Switzerland.

Not bad going from a singer who was all but overlooked by the voting public during Nouvelle Star.

Melissa Nkonda (screenshot from Je veux signer chez AZ video)

Oh yes the winner that year - Soan.

Now that was a triumph of audience power in determining a commercially successful artist.

Oh well, Nkonda, along with a fellow contestant from the same season - Camélia Jordana - is proof that TV talent shows certainly don't always get it right.

Here's "Nouveaux horizons".

Try not to tap you foot as you listen.



Bet you enjoyed that.

If you want to catch her in concert, check out the dates on her official website.