Proof that Iggy Pop is a grand softie at heart Entertainment 03 April 2012 by Alex Zagalsky Generally speaking, us Brits have a meagre knowledge of French music, usually condensed to a slimline catalogue of half a dozen singers: Edith Piaf, Charles Aznavour, Jacques Brel, Serge Gainsbourg, Vanessa Paradis and maybe at a push Celine Dion (though Canadian) and indie band Air. France is a country that is immensely proud of its music and language - if ever you watch weekend TV across the Channel, you will know that family shows are often centred on live singing and performance. And old crooners are not assigned to the scrapheap as they age either, in fact they tend to become national treasures - just look at Johnny Hallyday! It takes a brave person to enter this world. More often than not, it is French singers who experiment in English, the sexy accent gives a lovely lilt to the melody ( Vanessa Paradis, Carla Bruni and Charlotte Gainsbourg are good examples), but singing in French when your mother tongue is English is like treading on haloed ground as the French are protective over their language and well, they do it so well, don't they? In the sixties, Barbara Streisand released a French album, unimaginatively called Barbra Streisand en Francais, which was well received but now largely forgotten. No one has really picked up the mantle since then (unless you count Eddie Izzard who did a whole run of French comedy shows a few years ago with school boy melodies chucked in for good measure). But one unlikely contender is rekindling this love affair with French chansons where Barbara left off. Rock god and irrepressible mic muncher, Iggy Pop, is set to release a French/English album exclusively through luxury sales site vente-privee.com on May 14th. It is pretty impressive that Iggy, who is best remembered for his crazy stage antics and lung-tugging hits like The Passenger, is turning his vocal cords to French love songs, including hits such as Piaf's La Vie en Rose, Les Passantes by Georges Brassens and La Javanaise by Serge Gainsbourg. This is a Franco/American venture (half the songs are sung in English) but the love theme remains the same. Speaking about his new album, Iggy enthused, 'The songs in English, which refer to love's torments, are classics that I've wanted to sing my whole life. Fred Neil, Sinatra, Cole Porter… I've always wanted to give it a go. I was in Paris promoting “ Préliminaires”, my previous album, when someone gave me a CD of French songs. I really liked it and, like the American classics in my new album, I wanted to sing them. I mixed it all up. Musically speaking, it allowed me to head in a completely new direction.' Introducing the album through a website may seem odd too, but with its 2.5 million unique users a day, vente-privee.com is a great launch pad for such a novel collection of songs. So who would have thought it: Iggy's a headstrong businessman with a big old softie heart underneath all that brawn! The album, Après, is priced at £6 excluding delivery, and will be available on May 14 at vente-privee.com