Listen to Roxanne Panchasi's latest podcast, in which she interviews Jonathyne Briggs. Read professor Panchasi's summary below, and check out the podcast on the NBFS website.

Jonathyne Briggs' new book, Sounds French: Globalization, Cultural Communities, and Pop Music, 1958-1980 (Oxford University Press, 2015)  makes music the historical focus of the Fifth Republic's first two decades. What made certain sounds "French," and how did different cultural communities come together, expressing themselves in a variety of musical forms? From Françoise Hardy to Serge Gainsbourg, to the sounds of free jazz, Brittany folk, and punk, the book considers French musical production and consumption in global cultural context. Exploring the relationship between audio and national identities and communities, Briggs tracks both the influences from outside France on a range of scenes in and beyond Paris, and the reach of "French" sounds beyond the nation's borders.

Sounds French is a book that examines the contributions of artists and listeners, reading the noise of, and surrounding, the music treated in its pages. The book also includes links to some of the songs that Briggs writes about (see OUP's companion website ). Fans of yé-yé, Johnny Hallyday, chanson, Jean-Michel Jarre, Alain Stivell, Métal Urbain, and/or Daft Punk will all find much to learn and enjoy here.