Baroque 'n' Roll

French film director François Truffaut once said that English filmmaking was a contradiction in terms. The Brits have been saying the same thing about French pop music for decades. For the discerning Anglo-Saxon music lover, the country that gave the world Jean-Michel Jarre's po-faced pomposity and the embarrassing histrionics of paunchy, ageing rocker Johnny Hallyday had an awful lot to answer for.

So when Madonna gave a Frenchman called Mirwais the job of producing half the songs on last year's Music album, it simply confirmed the extraordinary turnaround that has taken place over the past four years:...

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