French House
French house is a style of electronic music which combines house music by French artists, the `90-00s European dance music and eurodisco. The genre has also been referred to as "nu-disco", "filter house" and "tekfunk" over the years. The defining characteristics of the sound are heavy reliance on filter and phaser effects both on and alongside samples from late 1970s and early 1980s American or European disco tracks. Celebrated and successful purveyors of this music include Daft Punk, Cassius, and Etienne de Crécy. Most tracks have a tempo range of 110–130 BPM.
Birth: 1997 Bloom: 2000
French house is greatly influenced by the lineage of American dance music from the emergence of disco onwards, maintaining a distinct connection to Euro disco and the short lived space disco music style. Space disco was very popular in France, with artists like Cerrone and Space during the late 1970s.
Thomas Bangalter`s tracks for his Roulé label may be considered the earliest examples of the attempt to establish a distinctive style of house music produced in France. His solo material, along with his work as a member of Daft Punk and Stardust, had a significant impact upon the French house scene during the mid-to-late 1990s.
The first French house experiments were warmly received by the UK dance music press and European DJ`s in the mid-1990s but major commercial success did not occur until 1998. Since 1999 the French sound became extremely popular in Ibiza (Spain). Daft Punk, Cassius and Stardust were the first internationally successful artists of the genre. Due to a reasonable amount of buzz generated from the huge clubbing scene and major record company support, Daft Punk`s debut album Homework entered the top ten of the UK album charts on release and they effectively became the biggest-selling French act in the UK since Jean-Michel Jarre.
Further international commercial success continued into 2000 with Bob Sinclar, Etienne de Crécy, Benjamin Diamond and Modjo, who are still popular. French house has influenced on Benny Benassi and the emergence of electro dance. This short-lived style was popular since 2002 to 2004 in continental Europe, the brightest representatives of which include Benassi Bros., Royal Gigolos, Global Deejays, and Shana Vanguarde.
Sometimes French house shares attributes with other genres like in music by Martin Solveig, Laurent Wolf, David Guetta, and many others. Their music can be attributed not only to pop-music, but also to French.
Also read: Techno
Umbrellate style: House
Got something to add? Please!