Sébastien Tellier - Parfum Diamant | A COLORS SHOW

 A preview of the forthcoming Sébastien Tellier album, with the track Parfum Diamant in A COLORS SHOW. All capitals, of course, because that's the brand and to be honest, I'm happy to associate an upper case artist like Sébastien Tellier with a show that absolutely shouts out its name.

COLORS has a nice formula for presenting artists. Uncomplicated, no gimmicks, and the focus squarely on the artist who is front and centre of the event. But the visual style is unmistakable. Hats off to them, it's always a pleasure to watch their output.

Speaking of hats, Tellier is giving a vibe that could straight from Jodorowsky's The Holy Mountain, a mystic poet hidden by a hat, shades, and a beard. Walking a fine line between dandy and holy man, high fashion or just a bearded guy in a black suit, whispering words that could be platitudes or pearls of wisdom. 

Maybe he's best known for performing at Eurovision when he arrived on stage in a golf cart, but there's always been more going on with Tellier. Even a fairly minimal piece like Parfum Diamant sticks in your head with a single listen. 

Tellier's Kiss The Beast album, with contributions from Nile Rodgers, Kid Cudi, and Slayyyter, is released on January 30. I'm already excited about this one, the first album I've really been looking forward to so far this year, so well worth getting a pre-download to catch it when it drops, I reckon.

Victoires de la Musique 2026 - the shortlist

The shortlist for this year's Victoires de la Musique awards has been released, and as always, it's an interesting read. It's the 41st time the event which celebrates Francophone music and artists has been held.

Sitting with five nominations is Theodora, with breakthrough female artist, live artist, album, single and audiovisual creation, so she'll probably be going home with something to decorate her mantlepiece.

Meanwhile, there are four significant nominations for Star Academy graduate Helena, best female breakthrough artist, live breakthrough artist, and best album and single, 

But not all the focus is on modern Francophone pop, it's nice to see Feu! Chatterton make the shortlist with what was - for this blog at least - the French album of the year as well as a nomination for best male artist.

The awards take place on Friday February 13 at the Seine Musicale arena, and long with the awards there will be some memorable performances showcasing the musical talent of France and beyond, televised on France 2.

Male artist

Disiz
Feu! Chatterton
Pierre Garnier
Orelsan

Female artist

Charlotte Cardin
Aya Nakamura
Vanessa Paradis
Santa

Male breakthrough

Ino Casablanca
L2B
Sam Sauvage

Female breakthrough

Helena
Miki
Theodora

Live breakthrough

Helena
Miki
Theodora

Album 

Hélé - Helena
Labyrinthe - Feu! Chatterton
La fuite en avant - Orelsan
Méga BBL - Theodora
On s'en rappellera pas - Disiz

Song 

Fashion Designa - Theodora
Les filles les meufs - Marguerite
Mauvais garçon - Helena
Soleil Bleu - Luiza & Bleu Soleil
Tant pis pour elle - Charlotte Cardin

Concert

DJ Snake
Justice Live - Justice
Santa
Zouzou Tour - Philippe Katerine

Audiovisual creation

Fashion Designa - Theodora
Je t'accuse - Suzane
Tant pis pour elle - Charlotte Cardin

Heroes Never Die: Tribute to Bowie on Arte

On the tenth anniversary of the passing of David Bowie there have been a raft of tributes, written, on the radio and on TV. The date was marked in France as elsewhere, and one of the most interesting was a special on  ARTE with some of Bowie's best-know songs being reinterpreted by other acts.

The Molotovs, The Horrors, La Roux, Carl Barat and Pete Doherty, Anna Calvi and The Divine Comedy all feature. Jeanne Added provides some much-needed French input while Yasmine Hamdan brings the show to its end with The Man Who Sold the World.

The documentary by Thierry Gautier and Sylvain Leduc, which runs just under an hour, includes a bit of background from each artist on their chosen cover. All sensitively and atmospherically shot.

You can cast questions endlessly about which acts deserved to be included here: Why The Horrors and not Suede? Perhaps it's a bit old school indie. Similar questions can be asked about the songs covered. Why aren's some of my favourites included? No matter. What's actually there is more interesting than what isn't and what could have been there. All the acts bring something different, from the reverential (Anna Calvi) to the more spontaneous and energetic (The Molotovs and Barat/Doherty).

There's some great stuff here. You might not like everything, but like those 'tribute' albums of the '80s and '90s that featured a raft of artists covering the work by a particular artist, it both throws up some unexpected gems and encourages a different interpretation of material you're probably familiar with.

Gims: Overton

It's probably not possible to overstate how big a deal Gims is in France. His Le Nord se souvient: l'Odyssée album was the biggest selling album of 2025 in France, in an end-of-the-year chart that saw every one of the top ten sellers in France being by French-associated artists, and rap/urban music dominating. 

The double album spawned a barrage of singles and videos, the most recent Parisienne in August, reaching number one in France and over 75 million views on YouTube in just a couple of months. Gims also released the top-selling single of 2025, with Ciel.

Add to this a tour that included five sold-out shows at the Paris La Défense Arena in 2025, He's got a busy live schedule for 2026, with dates at pretty much every major summer festival, and Gims is back at the Paris La Défense Arena in December. 

His new track Overton, a stripped-down rap number, is a nimble piece of rhyming and beats that shows  that even with the success he's had over recent years, he's still a master of the basics and can still hit as hard as any hungry young artist.

Vanessa Paradis - Les épines du coeur

A new video for a frankly funky piece by Vanessa Paradis from her 2025 album Le retour des beaux jours.

Les épines du Coeur follows Bouquet final which emerged as a clip in June, the album being released in October. Le retour des beaux jours is her eighth album, her first since 2018’s Les Sources.

She's a unique artist, who is probably one of the best-known French performers in the anglophone world on account of her early international hit. Although her status as a model and brand representative, her involvement with Johnny Depp and her acting career have probably helped maintain her profile outside France more than her subsequent musical career.

Paradis collaborated with Etienne Daho on the new album, Paradis having appeared on Daho’s 2023 album Tirer la nuit sur les étoiles, duetting with him on the album’s title track.

She’s touring extensively in arenas across France from March, two dates in May at the Zenith in Paris are already sold out.  

Additional dates later in the year include a show at the Accor Arena in Paris in November

"Mon frère" - Feu! Chatterton Live from Studio 104

A quite wonderful clip of the mighty Feu! Chatterton doing their thing live at the studio of France Inter.

While it's in a more controlled situation than a regular live show, it allows a closeness and a quality of the video production that are often missed when a full-scale live event is being captured. There's an argument that you'll never really capture an act's live experience on the small screen, as a million low-quality audience videos will testify. Perhaps this kind of session is an ideal compromise, allowing the intimacy of a close-up performance and the quality of a studio production.

I make no apology for thinking Feu! Chatterton are one of the best things to have come out of France musically in recent years. Their releases have been consistently high-quality affairs, literate, witty and intelligent, but somehow without taking themselves too seriously. They walk a fine line and do so with style.

It's ten years now since the release of their debut Ici le Jour (a tout enseveli) and their 2025 album Labyrinthe is every bit as essential as that first album was.

The clip comes from a performance in October  2025. It's worth tracking down all the other clips, including Allons Voir and L'affiche Rouge. A recent version of Mille Vagues is also available.

They're on tour across France's arenas this year from the end of this month, including two sold-out shows in Paris in February and sets at what seem like most of the country's summer festivals.

Indochine: Sanna Sur La Croix video

A new video from Indochine, marking the end of 2025 and the start of a new year. A video for the track No Name emerged two months ago, and now it's the turn of the song Sanna Sur La Croix, both from the 2024 album Babel Babel.

Sanna Sur La Croix is dedicated to former Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin, a political leader who Indochine singer Nicola Sirkis voiced his admiration for. During her term in office footage of her at a private party was leaked, which led to opposition right-wing politicians to call for her to undergo drugs tests. Marin was strongly opposed to Putin's invasion of Ukraine and led Finland to become a member of NATO.

The voice at the beginning of the video is Marin, explaining "I am a human being. And I too, sometimes want joy, light and fun in the middle of these dark clouds. 

"And that involves all kinds of photos and videos that I wouldn't want to see, and yet they're showing them to all of us. It’s private, it’s joy and it’s life."

The band are plain in their support for Marin in the song, and the unfairness of those who criticised her, who they say did not deserve her.

The band performs on the back of a lorry in the Finnish capital Helsinki, the footage interspersed with brief live clips of Indochine playing at Bercy in Paris.

Indochine have toured pretty relentlessly in 2025 and have dates in January, February and March this year to bring their arena tour to a close, including an astonishing eight dates at the Accor Arena in Paris. Meanwhile, the Babel Babel album has sold over a quarter of a million copies since its release.

It's kind of funny to see a crowd of maybe two dozen people applaud the band at the end of the performance in Helsinki, given the size of the audiences the band has played to during their latest tour.