Best known on her behalf function in Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, Mélanie Laurent also followed in the footsteps of fellow France stars Charlotte Gainsbourg, Catherine Deneuve, and Brigitte Bardot by turning her hands to a music profession. Blessed in the ninth arrondissement of Paris in 1983 to a ballerina mom …

Broadly considered the godfather of contemporary French pop, singer/songwriter Alain Souchon captured the precarious masculinity of postmodern man with uncommon tenderness and whimsy. Frequently working in relationship with composer Laurent Voulzy, his music explored designs both personal and politics with poetic sophistication, firmly building its originator as the religious heir …

Often set alongside the famous Serge Gainsbourg, singer/songwriter/arranger Benjamin Biolay is less likely to ask some lovely like Brigitte Bardot or Françoise Hardy to sing his songs when he may get it done equally well himself — although Gainsbourg did frequently duet along with his protégées, especially Jane Birkin around …