The book Global Tekno, written by journalists Jean-Yves Leloup and Jean-Philippe Renoult and illustrated by the photographer Pierre-Emmanuel Rastoin, offered readers a sort of introductory journey to the places that have marked the history of electronic music, ranging from Chicago and Detroit to Berlin. The book was awarded Best Work in the Music category by the Charles Cros Academy.
For the first time, a graphic novel, Le Chant de la machine, focused on the history of house music and its impact on the world from New York to London and Paris. Its authors were French: David Blot, a host on Radio Nova and a co-organizer of the famous Respect parties, wrote the script, while the late Mathias Cousin provided the illustrations. A new edition was published in 2016, and the process that went into making it was mentioned in Mia Hansen-Løve’s feature film, Eden.
A former musician of the legendary 1980s new wave group Taxi Girl, Mirwais got a new start to his career with his French Touch-influenced album Production. However, his big international success came when he produced over half of Madonna’s Music album, including the hit song by the same name. Mirwais gave the singer her first number-one album in the US since 1989 and “Like A Prayer”—except this time it had that French Touch.
Modjo’s “Lady (Hear Me Tonight)” based on a sample from “Soup For One” by Chic, was first a chart-topping summer hit in England before it conquered the rest of the world, thereby marking the commercial peak of French Touch sound. The song was created by two young Parisian musicians, 24-year-old Romain Tranchart and 22-year-old Yann Destagnol. The pair struggled to duplicate their success thereinafter.
December 2000 saw the release of Waves, a mixed compilation of the best releases from the dancefloor house label Crydamoure, founded in 1997 by one half of Daft Punk, Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, and his friend Eric “Rico” Chedeville. The album included productions from Guy-Man under a variety of pseudonyms, such as Le Knight Club (with Rico) and The Buffalo Bunch (with Romain Seo), as well as old pros out of the Chicago house scene like Paul Johnson and DJ Sneak.
