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54 albums · 1946–2023

Music of France, from chanson and yé-yé to French touch and rap

· 2 min read · by 1001 Albums

The front of the Olympia in Paris lit up at night
Édith Piaf singing at a microphone, her hands claspedDaft Punk in their silver and gold helmets and sequinned jackets
The Olympia on the boulevard des Capucines in Paris, the music hall where Piaf, Brassens and nearly everyone since have sung. Photo: Jérémy Kergourlay, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. · Édith Piaf on stage in Rotterdam in December 1962. Photo: Eric Koch for Anefo, Nationaal Archief, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons. · Daft Punk, Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, in 2013. Photo: Sony Music Entertainment, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

France's popular music has a word of its own, the chanson, and a stage of its own, the Olympia in Paris, where Piaf, Brassens, Barbara and Aznavour sang, and around them the country made much else: the yé-yé of Françoise Hardy and France Gall, Gainsbourg's Histoire de Melody Nelson, Magma and Jean-Michel Jarre in the seventies, the rock of Téléphone, Indochine and Les Rita Mitsouko, Bashung and Noir Désir, the rap of MC Solaar, IAM and NTM, the French touch of Daft Punk and Air, Phoenix and M83 for the world, and today Christine and the Queens, Orelsan, PNL, Clara Luciani, Aya Nakamura and Zaho de Sagazan. The list has 54 records from 1946 to 2023, one or two by each of the names above and only a small part of what they made; the French song of Belgium and Québec, Brittany's and the other regions' own music, film music and the classical tradition would each need a list of their own, and the accordion of the bal musette already has one. About 42 hours of music, 5 days of a few records each.

By genre

World 39%Pop 15%Rock 10%Other 36%
  • World 39%
  • Pop 15%
  • Rock 10%
  • Other 36%

The genres named most: french, pop, rock, chanson, electronic, hip hop.

The colours of the covers

A stripe for each cover, in the colour Tidal picks from it, sorted by hue; the greys at the end.

Where the music comes from

Music from 1 country: France 54. The deeper the colour, the more albums: one, two to four, five to nine, ten and more.

The 1940s

The 1950s

The 1960s

The 1970s

The 1980s

The 1990s

The 2000s

The 2010s

The 2020s

More lists

Lists of Countries first, then others; all of them on the blog. The blog.