Taratata100% Live au Zénith

Taratata is probvably France's leading TV musiuc show, but last week's edition was a little bit special.

The 528th (!) edition of the show was a live special, briadcast from the Zénith in Paris, with an absolutely immense line up of French musical talent on display.

Some of the names involved? Angele, Her, Shaka Ponk, Charlie Winston, LP, Pascal Obispo, Coeur de Pirate, Amandine Bourgeoise, Jenifer and Marc Lavoine. A wide range of styles and generations, with some well-chosen songs performed.

Musical tributes were paid to Jacques Brel and Charles Aznavour, and artists performed exclusive covers and duets.

Jenifer tackled Radiohead's Creep with Slimane.

Add to that Jane Birkin performing with Eddy De Pretto, with a song written by Serge Gainsbourg for Isabelle Adjani.



Jeanne Added performed with Zazie, playing the title track from Zazie's Rodeo along with a version of Nothing Compares to you, the Prince song made famous by Sinead O'Connor.


Cats on Trees performed Nicolas Peyrac's So Far Away from LA with Nolwenn Leroy, a song that appears on her forthcoming Folk album.


Loved this performance by Hyphen Hyphen with Catherine Ringer of a Les Rita Mitsouko number. Ringer was, of course, the singer with that legendary 80s duo. The song originally featured on their 1988 Marc and Robert album.

I reckon its about time the back catalogue of Les Rita was plundered by some present-day artists for one of those 'tribute' collections that have been filling the racks in Franch records shops over recent years, there's a wealth of great material there.

Charlotte Gainsbourg: Runaway

A memorable performance by Charlotte Gainsbourg on French music show Taratata, with a cover of Kanye West's Runaway.

It's been a busy month for her, having scooped the Victoires de la Musique award for best female artist at the ceremony at La Seine Musicale on the outskirts of Paris earlier this month.

She was on the shortlist with Catherine Ringer and Louane. There's pretty much no doubt in my mind that she was the obvious victor.

She's also just begun her tour, promoting her Rest album, with a date in Geneva so far. Dates are scheduled for Germany, Luxembourg and Belgium next month.

She's also got a show in Paris at La Cigale on March 28 and a sold-out gig in London the following day when she plays the Village Underground on March 29 .

Taratata 503

A new edition of French music show Taratata, another edition that saw some inspiring choices of acts and memorable performances.

This edition saw performances by Sylvie Vartan, performing solo and duetting with Axelle Red for a version of Elvis's Suspicios Minds.

Minuit performed a version of the depeche Mode track personal Jesus, as well as their own track Flash.

Other highlights Hyphen Hyphen performed with Charlie Winston, with a version of the Queen and David Bowie track Under Pressure.

Skunk Anansie performed with Shaka Ponk, with a mash up of and Motorhead's The Ace of Spades.

All the performances are available to watch on the Taratata website

The return of Taratata

Despite the television station made the decision to axe long-running TV music show Taratata, the show refused to go quietly, and is set to make a return in an online format later this month.

A teaser video has been released to promote the new version of the show, and from what it shows it seems that the show has lost none of its high production values despite being essentially a web-only show.

The new edition of the show features Patrice, Ayo and Cats on Trees.

The return of the programme in spite of a decision by a broadcaster to end it raises many interesting questions about the media and its relationship with the the online world. If a programme like Taratata can remain viable online, will TV companies invest in music shows? Will more quality music shows be developed online?

What audience will the new show attract and how does that compare to the regular broadcast figures?

It will be interesting to find out and we'll no doubt find out soon enough.

In the mean time, the show will be streamed online on October 18 at 20.00 French time at http://mytaratata.com

REM in France: Losing My religion on Taratata

With the announcement that they were finally calling it a day after 30 year career, I thought that it was worth putting up a video from one of REM's final French appearances.

I remember Michael Stipe telling the audience at an early show in the UK how he was met with puzzled looks in France once as he wandered a town in search of the station, asking locals "Ou est la guerre?"

They played their final French show on Augst 28 2008 at the Rock en Seine festival in Paris in 2008, during their tour to promote their Accelerate album.

They also earlier played in Lyon (July 8) and Nice (July 9) and a TV special in March on the Taratata programme.

There's a lot of terrible quality video of the final Paris show available on youtube, as well as a TV clip that could well be from the show, but as it says on screen that its from another festival altogether I can't be sure.

What's certain is that their performance on Tatratata - broadcast on April 2008 - was absolutely tremendous and filmed with the highest production values that anyone could ask for.

They were an extraordinary live band and I followed their releases fanatically until the release of the Monster album. I enjoyed some of their subsequent work, but I don't think they ever reached the same peaks as they did before then.

It could be argued that they should have called it a day after New Adventures in Hi Fi, but in their later years they were still capable of greatness, and they'll certainly be missed.

Black Eyed Peas on Taratata with Stromae

The Black Eyed Peas are big in France, like pretty much everywhere else, with their most recent single Just Can't Get Enough getting into the top five recently.

The band also played at the Stade de France in Paris on June 25

Meanwhile, an interesting version of one of ther best known recent songs has also emerged in a nice international collaboration.

The band appeared on a special edition of the French music TV show Taratata in June, performing songs like Pump It, The Time (Dirty Bit), Just Can’t Get Enough and an exclusive mashup of Don’t Stop The Party vs. Alors On Danse, by Belgium's Stromae.

News: Merzhin on Taratata

Breton band Merzhin played on the French TV programme Taratata last night, a special edition of the programme dedicated to Celtic music.

The show also featured Andrea Corr, Donovan, Alan Stivell and Nolwenn Leroy.

I covered Merzhin last month, and I'm only too happy to feature them again.

For me, the highlight of the programme had to be their version of the song The Partisan, a number originally made famous by Leonard Cohen, his version being in French and English like the Merzhin cover.

The song, originally titled "La Complainte du Partisan" was written in 1943 by Anna Marly, a Russian-born French singer songwriter. It was written while in London, where she fled following the fall of France, and came into contact with the Free French Forces.

She also wrote another better-know song Le Chant de Partisan, which was adopted as an anthem by French resistance forces in France and in exile, used as an unofficial national anthem while the Nazis banned La Marseillaise.

Leonard Cohen's version of the song led to many other cover versions of the song, including interpretations from Joan Baez to political punk bands like Red Union and Workers' United Front.

On account of the song le Chant de Partisan, Marly was named a chevalier de La Légion d'Honneur by François Mitterrand in 1985.

The Merzhin version is closer to the Leonard Cohen version than the Anna Marly original, and although it features more instrumental colour than Cohen's stark original, it retains the haunting quality of a remarkable song.

The band also played the song L'Étincelle from the 2010 album Plus loin vers l'ouest and were briefly interviewed for the programme.