French House, French Hype, French Touch

Ausprägungen und Auswirkungen der französischen elektronischen Musik der 1990er Jahre

Abstract

During the 1990s, France witnesses an evolution in the realm of electronic music, appearing as an important player on the world map of pop music. The label “French” soon becomes a sort of hallmark in the international perception; concepts coined in this context, like “French House”, almost immediately are also seen in a negative sense of a “French Hype” and criticised as a sell-out of the genre’s origins in the “underground”. However, simultaneously, the public identifies this quite heterogeneous and diverse music with a certain “Frenchness”, of difficult definition, but continuous presence. In this sense, the concept “French Touch”, in retrospect also works as the key for a modern myth as proposed by Roland Barthes.