Air

A breath of french Air across the channel

Paris 

06/02/1998 - 

French dance music is taking off on the other side of the Channel like never before. There's no doubt about it, French DJs are currently The Flavour of the Month with the British music press - so much so that a poor, neglected English DJ recently started using the name Rythmes Digitales in the hope of jumping on the "Froggy" bandwagon and exciting a bit of media interest!

France's latest rising stars, Air, who recently signed to Virgin, are in no need of Frenchifying their name to draw attention to themselves. On the contrary! Following in the successful footsteps of Daft Punk (Virgin sold 150,000 copies of Daft Punk's album on the British music scene!), Air are riding the wave of the French dance music craze and cashing in on the media interest surrounding Paris dance fever. Virgin certainly believe in their new dance protégés. Indeed, the label launched a huge promotional campaign for the French duo and Air's single Sexy Boy made it into the BBC's playlist long before the release of the duo's début album (on January 19th). Sexy Boy is currently riding high in the British charts, rocketing up to the n°6 spot!

"Just Don't Call Them The New Daft Punk"

But although Air might have refused to Frenchify their name, the duo have not been able to escape from certain "Froggy" stereotypes. For a start some British music critics have tended to put Air in the same category as the group of French DJs currently causing a stir on the other side of the Channel. The hip British monthly The Face, for instance, ran an article in its January issue linking Air with Motorbass, Daft Punk and Dimitri from Paris. But the new star French duo Air adamantly refuse to be labelled as DJs! Thierry Jacques, head of Virgin's export service, admits that there might have been a slight problem in the way Air have been marketed. "Several copies of Air's single were distributed through record shops selling directly to DJs," says Jacques, "The pair were thus (perhaps mistakenly) marketed as part of the French dance phenomenon, but that doesn't make them the new Daft Punk." Arena, another best-selling British style magazine, couldn't agree with Thierry Jacques more. In fact the magazine recently ran an article urging music fans not to call Air the new Daft Punk! In fact Air's down tempo electro pop is on another musical planet from Daft Punk's techno beats - about the only thing the two French groups have in common is that they both hail from the Paris suburb of Versailles!

"If you love it, you're going to cherish its sleepy elegance, if not, you'll hope their Moon Safari was booked on a one-way ticket". (Ear Wax)

Judging by the rapturous reviews which have appeared in music magazines such as Ear Wax, Air's success is not just a passing fad. According to the magazine Muzik, which recently elected Moon Safari as the "Best Album of January", the French duo's reputation is far from being built on hot air! Indeed, Muzik lists Air's three previous singles (Modulor, Casanova 70 and Le Soleil est près de moi (which appeared on various SouceLab compilations) as "3 of the greatest records of the decade". The highly respected New Musical Express also namedCasanova 70 as "Single of the Week" (at the start of 1996). Hardly surprising then that Air's album Moon safari should be dubbed as "everything the world's Air heads will have wished for". Bjork and Massive Attack are even warned to keep an eye over their shoulders - Air who have already worked with British stars such as Depeche Mode and Neneh Cherry - are billed as a major group in the making!

The magazine Ear Wax, which hailed Moon Safari as "vocadered seventies paradise", prefers to invite comparisons with the Electric Light Orchestra and the controversial French 70's star Serge Gainsbourg. (Incidentally, Gainsbourg, who died in 1991, appears to be enjoying renewed popularity across the Channel right now. Mick Harvey recently produced two albums featuring English adaptations of Gainsbourg classics and Gainsbourg's legendary album L'histoire de Melody Nelson is also enjoying renewed success in Britain and France.

But while British music journos have chosen to focus on Air's musical references, everyone else has been getting into the fact that the new French stars bring a glamourous "touch of Paris" to the British music scene. The well-known French DJ Dimitri from Paris (whose appearances at the hip London club Ministry of Sound helped launch his career) understood the importance of using Paris as a calling card. Indeed, he based his whole album Sacrebleu on promoting "The Parisian Life". Now Air too can boast about their Paris credentials and promoters love them for it - "As Air are French, it happily means that you can issue invitations with the word 'soirée' printed on them without feeling a tiny bit nobby". Moon Safari has thus been promoted as an album "conceived in Montmartre, the artistic quarter of Paris". Thanks to such arty Paris connections Air have now established their sound at the cutting edge of pop - "We used to laugh at French pop," admits a journalist from the Sunday Times, "but thanks to Air and Daft Punk now we are dancing instead".

"Potentially great in 98"

After expressing their admiration for the French duo who have "redefined the rules of pop" and proved that they "belong in the 21st century", the British music press has rushed to praise Air's record releases. The singles Sexy Boy and Le voyage de Pénélope have been hailed as "launchpads to places that UK/US producers can only daydream about"! Meanwhile, critics have acknowledged that Air's album Moon Safari is "a notable addition to the excellent music coming from across the Channel". Hip British music mags such as The New Musical Express and Dazed & Confused have showered the French duo with rapturous reviews while several other major publications have already elected Moon Safari as the Best Album released in January. But The Times recently went one step further, citing Moon Safari as "potentially great in 98".

Yet, perhaps the best Air tribute of all came from Q-Magazine, who dubbed Moon Safari "post-club perfect pop ... a fine study in the art of cool."