Today a link to a wonderful an unlikely documentary that was on Radio 4, the quiet voice of establishment broadcasting in the UK, highlighting the development of French punk music.
Listen to the programme again here >
The presenter Andrew Hussey makes the point that without the French, punk rock would just have been pub rock but with shorter hair. There are interviews with Stinky Toys and Marc Zermati from Skydog records, and brief blasts of some very great music.
The documentary makes a strong case that France had a pivotal role in punk rock, in both the broader picture by adding the intellectual and artistic ideas that underpinned the movement, and in detail, with such things like the singer of the stinky toys being the first to wear safety pins.
While making it clear that punk originated in the US, France picked up on it and developed it long before the UK. The ideas fell on fertile ground in France, Paris having a long history of rebellion and youth unrest, and earlier artistic movements centred there such as Situationism, Dada, Surrealism, and the 1920s modernists.
Malcolm McLaren spending time in France and took the influences of the French punks on board, but to these ears at least much of the French punk material has dated better than its UK counterparts. Maybe because it is because it is not as over-familiar, maybe because much of the UK punk was just pub rock repackaged or maybe because the French punks were a bit cleverer in their approach.
Take Métal Urbain's use of synths - still sounds like something most contemporary electro bands could only dream of achieving.
Anyway, there's a rich seam of music there that's been mostly written out of history and the documentary goes some way to redress the balance.
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