Les sons cardinaux

In France in the early '90s, Dominique A (born Dominique Ané in 1968) showed the way for those artists who wished to stick to singing in their birth language without necessarily putting aside their overseas pop influences, and thereby their poppiest edge. He more than often performed alone on-stage, jangling with synths, guitars, and microphones in a minimalist style that made him famous, relying partly on his high-pitched emphatic old-fashioned voice. His first hit, "Le Courage des Oiseaux," from...