What the hell is la variété française ?

Finally answering a burning question

I have talked many times in this newsletter about la variété française [trad: French variety] and I’ve always been puzzled when it was time to explain what it was.

Recently, I interviewed a duo from Lyon called Balladur (yes, like one of our former prime ministers) who claimed that they were now doing variété française, instead of the initial coldwave sound they had, all the way back in 2013. I would like to be able to talk to you about their excellent new album on my newsletter but I feel I cannot write any longer without finally taking the time to explain what is la variété française, what does it represents to the world, to France, to you and to me.

In short, la variété française is a meta-genre encompassing most of the popular music made in the French language. It doesn’t embarrass itself with stylistic clarification as it can present songs sounding like jazz, rock n roll, pop music, electronic genres and even hip hop.

In fact, those songs probably qualify for all those genres but are also part of the grand scheme that is la variété française.

There is no equivalent in the English language for “variété” but Wikipedia tries to tie it to the concept of “Middle Of the Road” (MOR) but that would imply variété is always bland or toothless, which would be a bit unfair. I’m going to try to do a quick history of la variété française and why it became synonymous with boring. Don’t come at me if I didn’t talked about your faves, okay?

Variété vs. Chanson

First, it’s important to separate “la variété” with “la chanson”. “La chanson” means “the song” in French but it’s also viewed as a form of music. Broadly, la chanson can refer to any song with French lyrics but it has other meanings in modern music.

Born out of the traditions of the Parisian music hall, the most well-know of our early stars de la chanson is probably Edith Piaf, that you all know from her song La vie en rose [trad: Life in pink].

First released in 1946, this beautiful love song evolved to legendary status through the years, being covered by myriads of international artists, included in many movies and TV shows. Melancholic at its core, the song never fails to entertain the listener. Other well-known performers from this era include Charles Trenet (author of La Mer, another French banger you might know), Yves Montand (who was having a fling with Edith at the time she wrote the song), Juliette Greco or Henri Salvador.

After Piaf and her cohort took over the popular music, France saw the resurgence of a simpler form of chanson in the 1950’s, celebrating the songwriter, with a direct approach of music and lyrics.

George Brassens is a member of the holy trinity of la chanson française with Jacques Brel (a Belgian) and Léo Ferré. And even if some of the songs are staying in the realm of entertainment, they are also touching more complex subjects, even political ones inspired by French bards but also folk singers like Bob Dylan, positioning themselves in fierce opposition from the variété. La chanson stayed around without disappearing but was slowly gentrified like every other genre.

Since the turn of the millennium, we witnessed the birth of the nouvelle chanson française [trad: the new French chanson] when a bunch of young authors tried to recapture the spirit of the original chanson française.

Vincent Delerm is an excellent example of nouvelle chanson française. On Tes Parents [trad: Your Parents], he’s nonchalantly describing his potential future in-laws with tons of clever references to French middle class on top of a cheesy piano-bar instrumentation. A combination that is quintessentially French. At this point in time, it’s hard to differentiate la Chanson from la Variété. In order to do that, we’re gonna have to rewind to the sixties and the birth of the French rock scene.

Les Yé-Yé and the birth of variété

In 1957, Johnny Hallyday was a young mod inspired by Elvis Presley. It would take a while to do a full biography so I’ll reserve that for a future period of unemployment. But the first years of the young Johnny hanging out in Paris illustrate perfectly the birth of la variétoche. When la chanson was the respectable vehicle for French music, a band of youngsters discovered the power of rock from the UK and the US and tried to translate it to French listeners. Literally translate it, because most of the biggest hits from the yé-yé period are covers.

Le Pénitencier [trad: The Jail] was released in 1964. It’s a cover song of the House of the Rising Sun, an American standard popularized the same year by the British band The Animals. It’s already a great song and Johnny does a great job translating the urgency of the song, with lyrics written by the songwriter Hugues Aufray. The obsession with American culture will be the stepping stone of Johnny’s career. He will never change his aim, riding Harley Davidson on stage and singing about Road 66, when he was in fact born in Belgium under the name Jean-Phillipe Smet.

From this era, some of the founding fathers of la variété, like Johnny, are dead but others like Eddy Mitchell and Jacques Dutronc remains huge names, well passed 80 years old. Sylvie Vartan, Johnny’s first wife, released her 50th studio album in 2021 !

Buckle up, we’re gonna ellipse the seventies (the true decade of creativity for French music).

The Golden Age of Boomers

For most musicians and listeners, variété is something they will now try to avoid to be categorized in. It has a negative connotation, very much like being MOR, and French people will often referred it as variét’ or even variétoche. That’s why it’s surprising to see an independent group as Balladur refers themselves as a variété française band and being happy to be compared with Michel Berger.

Incorporating synth sounds from the UK in his music, the rhythm is definitely poppy and the song evokes death without gloom or sadness. Over the years, Michel Berger became the prince of melancholic and complex variété, creating hit musicals like Starmania in the 1980’s when the variété française became serious and omnipresent. I already talked about the inevitability of Michel Sardou in French culture. But you can also listen to Daniel Balavoine or France Gall for a good kick.

If you look at our main point of reference - the Spotify playlist about the biggest hits of la variété française - half of the song were released in the period between 1975 and 1995, when the younger boomers turned eighteen and became the most important generation ever. Most of the French music stars or music executives are still boomers and the biggest target audience was boomers for a while (up until they started to die, I guess). No other generation had such a control over what was released.

In an article about the golden age of variété, the French magazine Marianne says the genre has a double objective : “to entertain and make a lot of money”. And boy, how they delivered during this period. D’eux [trad: From them, but also a wordplay on the word two] is the biggest selling record of all time in France with more than 4,5 million copies (and more than 10-million worldwide) and it wasn’t even released by a French person.

In 1995, Céline Dion was almost a global superstar. She was only beginning her North-American diva reign but in France and Quebec, she has already released a lot of songs. D’eux was her 15th album overall, coming strong after her biggest American success, The Colour of My Love (who took its time but sold more than 20 million copies in a couple of decades). D’eux was special because it was scientifically engineered to be full of hits. The main writer and producer was the elusive Jean-Jacques Goldman who left a strong mark of French music despite being hear silent during the last two decades.

If you’re rounding up the podium of the biggest selling French records, the next two are also from the same decade : Francis Cabrel’s Samedi Soir sur la Terre [trad: Saturday Night on Earth] was released on 1984 and sold 4-million copies and Patrick Bruel’s Alors Regarde [trad: So, look] was released on 1989 and sold 3-million. In 1995, la variété was ominous, inescapable, powerful and absolutely terrible.

The Fall of the House Variétoche

For years, there was little space for other music genres in the French cultural landscape. You have to imagine it was very hard to like anything else during the last two decades of the XXth century. That’s when variété française became synonymous with terrible music, unable to connect with a younger audience. I was a nerdy kid obsessed by weird indie music. It was very hard for me to understand why but you could easily find yourself in a party in Paris or Mulhouse where young people were still going to dance to Céline Dion or Jean-Jacques Goldman.

Variété was kept alive for a long time thanks to the boomer stronghold over television, especially with irrelevant award shows (les Victoires de la Musique) or annual musical revue (les Enfoirés). I’ll probably talk more extensively about the latter at some point because they are sadly still around. But, in the 2010’s, right after la nouvelle chanson française short reign, a miracle happened and zoomers arrived to finally kill la variété.

In the end, only French rap was strong enough to break the hegemony of la variété over French music. It’s been several years now, rappers, like Orelsan or Jul, are the best selling or streamed artists in France, thanks to their myriad of internet fans.

Whether rap had to sold his soul in order to get on the top is another debate entirely…