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I'm just starting to learn French with my son, who's turning 13 next month. When I learned Hindi, I listened to tons of Bollywood music. When I was learning German, I discovered Jupiter Jones. In both cases, I liked the music and the lyrics were pretty clearly enunciated.

So now I'm looking for suggestions for French music to listen to, to help improve our listening and to make the whole process more like fun than like work. There are a few simple criteria:

  1. the music should be good (however you want to define "good")
  2. the words should be fairly clearly sung
  3. the printed lyrics should be readily available (preferably mention if the CD has a lyric sheet)
  4. the language should be fairly standard (obviously it will be slang-ridden, but still useful for learning. I hope you know what I mean)


Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

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A couple of suggestions:

 

Overall, Jean-Jacques Goldman is probably one of the most successful singers who has spanned several decades; many of the songs are in a ballad style so the pronunciation is quite clear (and like most singers he also went through an 80s "pop" phase). His compilation Singulier has a wide mix of styles, including the song "Comme Toi" which was particularly famous. His later albums are also worth listening to, though.

In the mid 90s, Céline Dion worked with Jean-Jacques Goldman, including the album D'Eux, and her work was momentarily a bit less cheesy (and in French).

Check out Patrick Fiori, who has a vaguely similar style to Goldman (sorry, I see I don't have a biography up for him, but I guess there must be stuff in Wikipedia)

 

I think you can add to your list :

- Daniel Balavoine

- Alain Souchon

- Laurent Voulzy

- Jean Louis Aubert  (and his old band  Telephone)

- Benabar  (he may be sing a little bit too fast)

- Francis Cabrel   (singer with a south accent)

- Georges Brassens  (old singer with a south accent)

 

Sorry, no women in my list and no biography but as Neil said you can find stuff in Wikipedia .

Thanks Erwan. With some of these, you might need to be a bit more selective about which songs you choose for a 13 year old (but you will certainly find many that are suitable I think).

 

I have a little bio up about Bénabar, who I like a lot but think many of his songs might be too difficult.

 

I also like Christophe Maé and "Monsieur Clément", but again, you might need to be selective about songs.

Thanks for the starting suggestions.  What style are they?

 

I should maybe add that my son prefers rock music.  His favourite band is Muse, and I found Noir Desir since posting earlier, which sounds a bit like them. 

Balavoine, Souchon, Voulzy, Cabrel and Brassens are variété Française style.

Aubert and Telphone are often rock music.

I think Noir Désir is sometimes/often a little bit difficult.

Actually, I think that French rock band are not really easy for French learners. In this category, you can try : Luke, BB Brunes (but it's really difficult to understand them even for french people), Indochine

I recommend lyricstraining.com as there are some great language learning/singing along opportunities, you will learn and have fun at the same time :)

Oh wow!  That is possibly the single best internet resource for language learning I have found! The fact that they make a game out of it will be motivating.  I went through a song twice, and each time it had different blanks to fill in. 

 

I only wish there was a way to just play the song through with the lyrics.

 

Edit:  Okay, I discovered "karaoke" mode, where the lyrics just scroll by.  Some of the translations are quite funny, I assume they're just made by software.  "Près d’ici ou là-bas" comes out as "Prs dici or below".   Google translate says it means "Near here or there".  Is that accurate?

Hello there,

Personally, i would take back George Brassens (too many deviation from scholar French), Noir Désir (lyrics too often obscure) and Alain Souchon, although he sings clearly, likes to play with words and the meaning of his lyrics can be hard to catch.

Any thoughts on Guillaume Grand?  I just heard his song Toi et Moi on the lyric training website mentioned above.  Sounds pretty good.
Not very much. It's not the music i like to listen, so i can't talk about his usefulness here.

I started a French radio station in the U.S. in January 2011, which plays French language popular music for language learners.  You may want to browse our playlist.  I try to feature everything from traditional Chansons Francaises to exotic heavy rock of Indochine and Dionysos.

Here's a list of a few recommended songs that have a catchy tune and relative straightforward and well-pronounced lyrics:

1) Joe le Taxi by Vanessa Paradis

2) Le Temps des Cerises by Cora Vaucaire

3) Le Jardin Extraordinaire by Charles Trenet

4) Les Champs-Elysees by Joe Dassin

and finally a Christmas song by the France's answer to Elvis Presley...

5) Noel Interdit by Johnny Hallyday

Hope that helps! Complete playlist may be found at frenchrobotradio.com

Thank you for the song list, Brian.  I will be sure to check them out, and have a look at your station's website as well!

I mentioned Guillaume Grand a while ago.  Since that time, I purchased his CD (he only has one), and I think it's  great!  The songs are easy to listen to, and it's not hard to pick out words and phrases I know (remember, I'm just a beginner).  He sounds a bit like James Morrison.

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