French House - History and Influences

History and Influences

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, Space and Sheila B. Devotion during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Additional influences came from P-Funk, especially the George Clinton and Bootsy Collins hits of that era. Due to originating from the same foreign market, P-Funk was played alongside disco in many French discothèques, especially after the Disco Demolition Night took place in the United States. The Jacking aspect of Chicago house was also picked up on as a theme to incorporate (with "jack house" becoming a short-lived descriptive term for the sound in the UK).

Thomas Bangalter's tracks for his Roulé label may be considered the earliest examples of an 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. Duo Motorbass (aka Philippe Zdar, later of Cassius, and Étienne de Crécy) were also among the first in France to produce house tracks which were largely based around samples and filtered loops – in turn inspired by emerging American house producers such as DJ Sneak, Green Velvet and Roger Sanchez and their penchant for producing sample-led house tracks with deep funky grooves. Parisian producer St. Germain produced house tracks with a similar style at the time but these were more directly influenced by Jazz as opposed to the brasher vocal disco records appropriated, while other known French DJ-turned-producers at the time such as François Kevorkian and Laurent Garnier remained relatively distant from the emerging French house label.

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 1997. Daft Punk, Cassius and later Stardust were the first internationally successful artists of the genre. Along with Air these acts were signed to Virgin Records and benefited from distinctive music videos directed by the likes of Spike Jonze, Michel Gondry and Alex & Martin. 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. The emergence of the French sound was well-timed as dance music's popularity in the influential UK market was peaking commercially with electronica.

Further international commercial success continued into 2000 with Bob Sinclar, Etienne de Crécy, Benjamin Diamond and Modjo achieving hit singles around Europe. In late 2005, pop superstar Madonna released Confessions on a Dance Floor, an album with significant French house influences in several of its songs.