Ask Lemmy

I have not a single one, so my apologies for the longish reply ;)

A few of my all time favorites non-English are from French (like me) singers. Older ones, like me: people like Jacques Brel, Georges Brassens, Serge Gainsbourg, Edith Piaf,... And so many more. I'm nearing my 60s and I've been listening to some of them since I was a very young boy, aged 7 or 8, on my parent's HiFi (who also introduced me to classical music, my absolute favorite type of music).

What follow is anything but a full list of my favorites. It's a very limited selection among those I consider my lifelong companions:

• A few from Jacques Brel: Rosa about kids and school and about learning Latin (back then kids used to learn Latin in schools, lyrics are absolutely filled with French word plays so if you're not fluent you probably won't get it but it's a real smart song). Another one Amsterdam of which David Bowie made an excellent English version. Ne me quitte pas, Quand on a que l'amour... but this is merely scratching the surface as he wrote countless amazing songs, funny ones, deep, sad and even absurd ones like, say, Vesoul. One I deeply disliked when I was a kid/young teen and now consider one of his greatest song: Les marquises.
• Brassens: La mauvaise réputation, his Chanson pour l'auvergnat ou encore Le temps ne fait rien à l'affaire (about being a moron, at any age ;) or (probably considered NSFW in our so modern days) Le gorille. To be honest, I don't know many of his songs I'm not a fan of.
• Gainsbourg: Je suis venu te dire que je m'en vais, La chason de Prévert, or (NSFW) Je t'aime, moi non plus (a huge slap in the face the first time I listened to it, and still an amazing song all those years later imho).
• A few other French singers in no order: Barbara L'aigle noir, Yves Simon, whose best know song was probably the title song for the eponymous movie Diabolo menthe but he wrote quite a few popular songs like say, Au pays des merveilles, Juliette. William Sheller Un homme heureux or his Je cours tout seul (Sheller is an incredible song writer), Alain Souchon J'ai 10 ans, Sous les jupes des filles. Niagara La ville dort or Je dois m'en aller. As a teen barely younger than the singer, Muriel Moreno, back then I was secretly (from my girlfriend at least) in love with her and I could not imagine nay one moving or looking at me more... sensually.
• And a last one but certainly not the least important singer: Gérard Manset: Il voyage en solitaire "Mais il est seul, un jour l'amour l'a quitté/s'en est allé faire un tour de l'autre côté/d'une vie où y avait pas de place pour se garer".
• There are so many more!

If anyone has managed to reach that point, listening to all the songs, and is wondering: yes, I also listen to much more contemporary French (and non French) artists. In many various genres.

French language always was and still is about telling a story, about playing with words and with sounds, exactly like poetry. Which is most I care about as a reader/listener. Contemporary French singers do understand that as well as their predecessors did. They just don’t use the same rhythms anymore and don’t share the exact same stories (well, fundamentals remain unchanged: love, hate, sadness, fun,... but how they express it changes), and they’re certainly not less talented! But no matter how much I appreciate the work of some of them, and I do, they are not the singers I grew old with so I would not call them my favorites ;)

... I would even less dare call them favorites in our over-chastised sad times, populated with countless self-entitled white knights always looking for an opportunity to tell everyone else what they should and should not do, what they should like and not like. Because what would those people say of an almost 60 years old dude openly admitting he do enjoy listening to, say, the young (Belgian) singer Angèle? Bruxelles, je t'aime, J'entends or Tout oublier? A bit like, nearing my 60 I enjoy as much as I enjoyed it in my teens, if not more, listening to 16th century French music, or reading 15 and 16th century French poetry too.