French House - Terms, Origins and Variations

Terms, Origins and Variations

The term "French house" was first used on MTV UK during the Christmas holiday period of 1999. It was used on an MTV News special, to describe a so called "French house explosion" phenomenon. Bob Sinclar was interviewed, as well as Air and Cassius. That news special later aired on all the MTV local variations worldwide, spreading the term and introducing the "French house" sound to the mainstream.

Prior to that (1996–2000), "French house" had been referred to among Europeans as "neu disco", "disco house" and "new disco". However, the term "French Touch" was first used by music journalist Martin James in his 1996 review of the first Super Discount EP in the now defunct weekly music paper Melody Maker. This term became favoured among the French media and was then widely used in the UK press by 1998. ]. Martin James was later recognised by French newspaper Liberation and Radio NRJ as the journalist responsible for naming the French house phenomenon French Touch.

One of the biggest markets for neu disco at the time, was Greece and especially Athens. A local music shop called Discobole Records imported the records direct from France and middle class clubs like City Groove dedicated totally to the genre between 1998 and 2001. In Greece this music style was promoted as "disco house".

At the same time, disco house began to gain success in Canada. During 1999 many events also took place on Spain's Ibiza, a very popular destination for British tourists. However "happy house" is nowadays mainly kept alive by a number of Ministry of Sound DJs in London. (see Ministry of Sound annual dance collections etc.)

French house is essentially a combination of three production styles. One is what the French still refer as "the French touch" and it is the style that greatly influenced by the space disco sound. The second is a continuation and update of Euro disco and greatly influenced by the productions of Alec R. Costandinos. The third would be the deep American house style as evident in the similar treatment of samples and repetitive 'funky' hooks. Naturally further variations and mutations followed. French house maintains the established "French touch" sound, focused more on Euro disco-like vocals and less emphasis on the "space disco" themes. However, most of the music's most successful acts have altered their sound since. Bob Sinclar's later work including the big hit "World, Hold On (Children of the Sky)", which had a video based on a science fiction theme, maintains only a distant connection to the original French house sound. Both Daft Punk and Etienne De Crecy developed a harder synthetic sound more directly inspired by techno and electro for their most recent albums.

In Ibiza, disco house took later another direction: It combined vocals and some elements from the UK's speed garage (a mid 1990s music style) with a local Latin flavor. On 2007, many underground disco house productions belonged to this Ibiza school.

French house influenced Benny Benassi for the creation of his "tek-house" music style (also known as "pumping house"). That short lived music style became very popular during 2002–2004 in continental Europe, with artists such Benassi Bros., Royal Gigolos and Shana Vanguarde. During 2007, a crossover of tek house and French house appeared in the French market, with limited success (promoted mostly through the M6Music music channel, W9 and NRJ Music). Most of those hits were remixed in a 2000s (decade) electro house style to reach mainstream audiences, mostly of the new established dance music style called Tecktonik.