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We love our readers, especially when they send us links to stories featuring a “clueless old white guy mocking a simple request by a pro football player to hear some more current songs at the stadium…I’ll copy and paste below in case the St. Louis Post-Dispatch hires an editor before you click the link.” Hey, looks like the Post-Dispatch declined to do so.

Rams running back Steven Jackson pointed out this glaring deficiency to reporters after Sunday’s loss [to the Seahawks]. Jackson asked the scribes to petition the stadium-operation types to play more lively music.Of course, that’s what is missing–hip-hop! How can the Rams expect to turn things around without a change in music application? What are these stadium people thinking, not playing more hip-hop with a predominantly middle-aged audience in the stands? How can these Souljas Boys be expected to perform when the commercial interludes aren’t jumping, yo? The road to the Super Bowl starts with a clef, a five-line staff, and a bleeped-out rhyme.

Wow, between that, the mocking/ironic use of the word “dawg” in the headline, and calling Akon “Akron,” looks like it’s Dan O’Neill for the cornball win today.

Lil Hip-Hop Would Be Music To Jax’s Ears, Dawg [Post-Dispatch; HT: Josh Katz]

Known primarily for its shock value, horror-rap focuses on death and extreme violence. Needless to say, it has not reached the level of success more commercially acceptable hip-hop genres have.

Three 6 Mafia and Bone Thugs-N-Harmony are among the artists known for horrorcore content.

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Crunk is a high-energy style of Southern rap that combines high-pitched electronic drum sounds, heavy bass and simple, repetitive lyrics, which makes the music a nightclub favorite.

It didn't gain wide public appeal until the early 2000s, when artists such as Lil' Jon and the Ying Yang Twins burst onto the scene with their vigorous dance tunes.

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Political rap, a repackaged version of conscious rap, was on the forefront of hip-hop culture during the early 1990s. It primarily focuses on social issues and the need for political empowerment in the black community.

Artists Public Enemy, Tupac Shakur and Talib Kweli have been tagged as rappers in this genre.

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Gangsta rap was by far the most popular hip-hop genre in the 1990s. It flourished with songs and videos glorifying violence in the inner-city. N.W.A., Ice-T and Philly rapper Schoolly D are some of gangsta rap's more prolific figures. Many of them, however, have moved toward a more commercially friendly image and sound.

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Country rap is a mixture of Southern and rap music. Its content draws from rural life rather than the street life that inspires East Coast and West Coast rappers. Artists like Nappy Roots and Bubba Sparxxx have made being a "hick" socially acceptable.

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Mafioso rap is modeled after American organized crime. Rappers such as Kool G. Rap, Jay-Z and the Junior Mafia depicted the luxurious lives of rappers-turned-gangsters during the '90s. The songs, videos and album covers referenced crime organizations and figures in famous movies such as "Scarface," "The Godfather" and "Goodfellas."

Jay-Z's latest album, "American Gangster" - rich with samples from 1970s soul classics such as the Isley Brothers and Marvin Gaye - was inspired by the crime movie of the same name now in theaters, starring Denzel Washington. *

- Dafney Tales

LATEST: LINDSAY LOHAN is set to stage a pop chart comeback with a little help from rap superstar 50 CENT.The Mean Girls actress’ father, Michael, has revealed Lohan is hoping to revisit her career as a pop singer, and she’s asked 50 Cent to give her music an edge.He tells America’s Life & Style magazine, "They’re talking about working together. Nothing’s firm yet, but they’re in talks." Michael insists that although the match-up might seem odd to many, his daughter and 50 have become good friends.He adds, "They’ve actually known each other for a while, just from being in the business together and crossing paths at events." Lohan’s first two albums, Speak and A Little More Personal, were minor successes. Insiders suggest the actress plans to call her third album Nobody’s Angel.

Brando Quin's music is acknowledged by fans and musicians as original, unique and powerfully expressive. The Music Video shot in HD Widescreen is the Theme song for the Television Series of the same name, "The (nfl's) Sofa League of Heroes" due to begin shooting in 2008 in Phoenix AZ.

Central, AZ (PRWEB) November 29, 2007 — Glaxicon Music in conjunction with RavenPheat Recording Studios, "The Reid Effect" and LuLu Publishing Company releases the Comedic/PoP Music Video, "The (nfl's) Sofa League of Heroes" Starring Brando Quin Lead Singer, Song Lyrics Writer and Melodies Composer, Producer John Mahoney Music, Arrangement and Production, Tim Sadow Lead Violin, Michele Sarrett Backup Vocalist, Dan King Saxophonist, and Ted Hale Lead Trombonist. DVD now available at www.LuLu.com/BrandoQuin

Brando Quin opens up once again and draws us into his rich Irish/English American heritage giving us an entertaining Music Video of unique, original, expressive and comedic American (nfl) Football Fan Comedy/Pop Music.

For music fans fiending for fresh, forward-thinking indie-rock, look no further than the double bill of Chase Pagan and Look Mexico. Kicking off a tour that will traverse much of the great Southeast through the end of December, both dabble from the drawing board of established eclectic sounds and are guaranteed to be the underground gems you’ve been waiting for.Hailing from Tallahassee, Fla., is foursome Look Mexico.Formed in 2004, the quartet of Matt Agrella, Ryan Slate, Josh Mikel and Tyson Kuhlhoff could be the baby brothers to Minus The Bear. As opposed to the anxious and sullen sounds of its Seattle-based soulmates, the band resembles an array of relevant post-rock with a welcoming and warm light heart. The band showcases rigid rock music encapsulating an earnest sound yet to be unearthed. With influences including Explosions in the Sky and The Promise Ring, its latest effort “This Is Animal Music” captures pop pinches and the indie-folk fare of Athens regulars and Florida friends Band Marino. Catching the band’s set is crucial for fans of Death Cab for Cutie circa “The Photo Album” era, rootsy emo along the lines of Built To Spill and, of course, the atmospheric math-rock of Minus The Bear. Accompanying Look Mexico is piano-rock prince Chase Pagan. With a soaring sound and proven powerful passion, it’s hard to believe he hatched from the heartland of Arkansas. Touting a voice somewhere between Jeff Buckley, Keane’s lead singer Tom Chaplin and Freddie Mercury, Pagan achieves an ambitious arena rock sound akin to Queen just sitting at his piano with a percussionist at his side. His debut on Militia Records, “Oh Musica,” combines elements of classic rock, well-thought out tango tinges and the standard soul of the singer-songwriter while at times initiating the intimacy of Andrew Bird - whistles and all. Listeners will be lucky Chase Pagan, an up-and-coming confessed country boy with his heart on his sleeve, has come out of the woods.

Colbie Caillat is the queen of My Space. There was no official coronation. But with more than 14 million views, 290,500 friends and a No. 2 song on Billboard’s Pop 100 chart, Caillat (rhymes with “ballet”) has to be the networking Web site’s biggest success story for a newcomer. A year ago, the 22-year-old acoustic-pop-soul singer was working the front desk at a tanning salon and living with her parents in Malibu, Calif. Now, she has a hit album and a headlining tour. It’s all because her tune Bubbly popped from MySpace to No. 1 on iTunes to adult-pop radio to Top 40 radio. “I’m so excited and so proud of it,” she said. “I never would have thought this song — it’s pretty crazy.”

When Caillat set up her MySpace page, she didn’t even know how to post music: “My friend had to make the page for me and show me how to upload my songs.” Last spring, she spent four months at No. 1 on MySpace’s unsigned-artist list — and even started getting recognized on the street — before landing a deal with Universal Republic. In July, she released Coco, featuring tunes she co-wrote with Jason Reeves, an Iowa City musician whom she met two years ago through her producer, Mikal Blue. “When we first met, we had everything in common,” she said of Reeves. “We like doing outdoors stuff. We’re into photography. So we started hanging out every single day and writing songs together. He’s pretty much the brother that I’ve never had. I go to Iowa [City] with him and he shows me stuff like ice skating, which I’ve never done. And I take him to the beach when he comes to Cali.” Caillat grew up in the music business. Her dad, Ken, co-produced Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours and Tusk and went on to run his own label. Dishwalla was the band she knew best from her dad’s career, but she has hung out with Fleetwood Mac’s Mick Fleetwood and John McVie, who are good friends of her dad. After singing in school talent shows, Colbie got a guitar at age 19 and began writing songs, mostly in her parents’ bathroom. Caillat penned Bubbly, a simple ditty about a crush, without a specific guy in mind. “Bubbly was written in my bedroom,” she said. “I was sitting at home. I was bored. It was raining. And all my friends wanted me to come go out with them to a club or something like that. I didn’t want to. I had no motivation to. Normally, it’s exciting to go out when you have a crush on someone or you like a guy. I didn’t like anyone at the time, and I missed having those feelings when you like someone. And I started writing Bubbly.” After touring this summer with the Goo Goo Dolls and Lifehouse, Caillat is headlining her own shows in clubs and theaters, including a free concert Saturday at CityPlace in West Palm Beach. Her band features guys, all singer-songwriters, whom she mostly met — where else? — on MySpace.If you go Colbie Caillat headlines WRMF-97.9 FM’s No Snow Ball, with Graham Colton and the Last Goodnight, at 7 p.m. Saturday at the Plaza at CityPlace, 700 S. Rosemary Ave., West Palm Beach. Free. Call 561-868-1100.

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Sometimes in life, you have to champion a cause.

At work, you might champion a change to the break room that everyone will eventually thank you for. A newspaper reporter might champion a local community story that just might have an impact when read by a wider audience. And when you’re a music journalist, you sometimes have to champion a little-known recording artist whose music is just too good to be ignored by the mainstream.

J.Ralph is my cause, largely because he changed my life.

As a young teen, I wasn’t that much into music. Oh sure, I heard songs on the radio, but way back in the day—years before my parents got cable—my musical awakening happened because of The Box. It was a small-time call-and-request music video network. It was always covered with a nice little layer of TV snow, but that didn’t prevent me from taping videos off the TV with our VCR, reveling in the sheer excess of the rock video. Sure, there were a couple of days when Eminem’s “My Name Is” was played about twice every half-hour, but sometimes a golden nugget shone through, and you got to hear a song that absolutely blew your mind. Beth Orton’s “Stolen Car” was one of these songs. The Smashing Pumpkins’ “Aida” (the first Pumpkins song I ever heard) was another. Yet nothing would change my views on pop culture more than “Baby”, a video by a little-known artist named Spy. It was like a miniature crime-movie set to a pop song, all helmed by a wide-eyed NYU film grad named Joshua Ralph. Spy was his band. 1999’s Music to Mauzner By was his debut album. The day I purchased it, things would never the same again.

Being a product of ‘90s alt-rock, the first few albums I bought were staggeringly eclectic yet completely mainstream: Everclear’s So Much for the Afterglow, the Barenaked Ladies’ Stunt, and even Garth Brooks’ infamous Chris Gaines experiment (and the less said about Real McCoy’s Another Night, the better). Spy’s Music to Mauzner By was, as far as I can tell, only the 8th album I purchased in my life. Unlike the pop and rock albums that I had heard prior, nothing could have possibly prepared me for the madcap eclecticism that ran rampant all over J.Ralph’s debut.

Impeccably sequenced, Mauzner careens from late-night jazz fusion to furious country violin solos without batting an eye. It wasn’t just a rock guitarist playing with a mish-mash of “crazy instruments”, though—it was a genuine artist who was willing to jump from genre to genre because of his genuine love of music. His passion bled through on every multi-layered track, with Ralph often handling most if not all of the instruments himself. It’s an album that I enjoyed on the first spin, loved on the second, and have grown to appreciate more with each subsequent listen. It’s the kind of “underground secret” that you share with you friends, hoping that they will go out and buy copies of for themselves. You know that it’s a good sign when they actually make good on that notion.

To the nines, I don’t combineThe cologne sharks and the tattooed mindsA-greeny-reeny-roo, doing what he couldThe spunk is always greener but the spunk is never goodIn a hypnologic state you’ll findCare seat jackets on a hollow spineAll the lies I told I broughtThe cup was full when the check was dropped—J.Ralph, “Baby”

As Music to Mauzner By progresses, your expectations are raised from track to track. Often filled with catchy beatnik-styled lyrics, Ralph could surprise with the occasional heart-breaking ballad, as on the joyous-yet-haunting “Leave Me Alone” and the mournful gospel send-up “Stay Away”. Ralph gave me my first-ever lesson on song structure with his epic spy-instrumental “The Desert Suit Conspiracy”, in which the track is divided into four different moody instrumental mini-suites that are layered over each other and just so happen to sync up with jaw-dropping precision. Yet no one could ever have predicted an ending as grand or epic as “Untitled 17”, a full-on orchestral score to a movie that no one could see. Recorded with the New York Philharmonic (under the direction of noted film composer Carter Burwell), “Untitled 17” is a short four-minute composition that just might move you to tears, sounding totally familiar and completely new at the same time. It reminds you of great silver screen kisses that happen right before the credits roll, tugging on the heartstrings of everyone in the movie theater. It’s cathartic, sweet, beautiful, and utterly haunting. All the more amazing when you learn that J.Ralph still doesn’t know how to read music.

While I fell madly in love with every note on Music to Mauzner By, I was equally enthralled by the mythology surrounding J.Ralph. Upon graduating NYU, he wound up renting an abandoned silent-movie house in New York City, filling it to the brim with instruments and fellow musicians. His journey into the pop world is entirely insular yet completely accessible, indulging his ego without once ever coming across as egotistical. The only thing more cryptic than his lyrics was his website, which featured mostly-fake background information and quotes from things that didn’t exist:

“Invisibility is key. You cannot shoot, what you cannot seeThus, the subject remains unseen.”—J.L. Smilovic Corpicus Ipsus; Gray Matter Lightning, 1918

Unfortunately, it would be awhile before we would hear from J.Ralph again. Mauzner flopped, selling only 7000 copies domestically. He was soon dropped from Lava/Atlantic, but not before they gave him one more shot. You see, Ralph had composed this glorious instrumental called “One Million Miles Away” sometime after Mauzner‘s release, and Volkswagen, hearing the potential in the song, used it on a small little ad that just happened to run during the Super Bowl:

Encouraged by the response, Mauzner was temporarily re-released with “One Million Miles Away” tacked on to the beginning (something that wasn’t reflected on the actual track listing printed on the back—so much for rushing), but it did little to help J.Ralph’s sales. However, it did fire up his muse all over again. Ralph soon transplanted himself to Prague to work on an all-classical album, all the while retaining his down-to-earth pop sensibilities. The Illusionary Movements of Geraldine & Nazu was initially an iTunes-only release, but soon Barnes & Noble picked it up, touting him as the next big thing and releasing it only through their store. Once again, the songs were absolutely stunning, and once again, Ralph was relegated to mere footnote status.

Yet “One Million Miles Away” taught him a lesson, and before long he formed his own label: Rumor Mill Records. The purpose of Rumor Mill was to create original songs specifically for advertisers, and Ralph once more found a stable paycheck in doing what he loves. Next thing you know, he was brought on to compose the score to the Josh Hartnett action movie Lucky Number Slevin, a soundtrack that also featured J.Ralph’s first pop song in years, the excellent “Kansas City Shuffle”. Unfortunately, the movie only fared so-so, and many people didn’t know that just like Geraldine & Nazu, the Slevin soundtrack was only available through Barnes & Noble.

So is Ralph doomed to be cast as a David against a music marketing Goliath?  Unfortunately, he may be. As far as history is concerned, Ralph is following the same path as Badfinger, the Beatles’ pet group who made great music but got caught in a series of bad circumstances. Fortunately, Ralph is still young, and he’s got his whole life ahead of him. On his website (www.jralph.com), he streams not only all of his albums, but also all of his unreleased albums, including his abandoned follow-up pop set (Frame the Horse) and his various film soundtrack work and collaborations (including, most inexplicably, a duet with Val Kilmer). So amazed I am by the quality and consistency of his career that I’ve gone as far as to record his gorgeous ballad “Lil Ol’ Me” through crappy computer speakers and share it on various mix CDs for friends. Yes, I’m that obsessed.

Yet I’m obsessed for good reason. In the hundreds upon hundreds of albums that I have bought, listened to, and reviewed since J.Ralph’s debut, very few have matched the wide-eyed eclecticism that Music to Mauzner By offered. As a matter of fact, it should be no surprise that in my not-so-humble opinion, the only disc that comes close to matching Ralph’s widescreen pop mastery is the Avalanches’ sprawling debut album, Since I Left You. Yet I wouldn’t be able to appreciate that album were it not for Music to Mauzner By. I’m not sure if I would have the same skewed view on the realm of pop music were it not for the possibilities that Mauzner offered before me, lovingly dressed up in colors that can only be seen by a true musical madman.

Eight years after my first listen, Music to Mauzner By sounds as fresh, modern, and surprising as ever. When I look back on how my views of music have evolved, I look back at Mauzner and think “Wow, it truly did change my life.” No wonder it’s the first thing that comes to my lips whenever someone asks me “What’s your favorite album?” Eight years from now, I doubt that the answer is going to change.

Big Style section profile today on the African debt-relief activist Bono Vox. The central question asked by my colleague Sridhar Pappu is what makes Bono such an effective and powerful activist and lobbyist, particularly in a city as fractured as Washington.

(Not sure this has anything to do with the answer, but I do love that Bono is willing to conduct an interview at a urinal. Seriously. It’s in the story. And I’ve heard the audio evidence. And no, I won’t send you an MP3.)

Also in today’s dead-tree product, there’s a Names & Faces item about Bono showing up at a London charity concert to perform a few U2 songs with The Edge. Because, you know, for all the time Bono spends trying to save the world, his number one job remains Rock Star. At least I think it does.

Anyway, here’s what I’m wondering: Do you think Bono is still a powerful rock ‘n’ roll frontman? Are you buying what he’s selling? To what degree is your impression of U2’s music colored by his day job as an Important Geopolitical Figure who hugs world leaders at G8 summits, takes meetings with POTUS and travels the world with the U.S. treasury secretary?

I liked “How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb” pretty well and I’m dying to hear what they do next, working with the great Rick Rubin. For the most part, I enjoyed the U2 concerts at [Insert Telcom Company Name Here] Center in 2005. But I really, really, really wished that Bono hadn’t spent so much time on his soapbox during the D.C. shows. Less jabbering and more pure musical salvation, please.

It’s not like Bono is new to the game of mixing politics and popular music. Hardly so. It’s just … different now. Elevated. More extreme. It’s certainly magnified because he plays under such a bright spotlight, on such an expansive stage. It’s part of the Bono package deal, I guess; but I’m not sure I like the way it’s being bundled these days. You?

By J. Freedom du Lac | November 26, 2007; 10:00 AM ETActivism , Africa , U2 Previous: The Two-Minute Man, Episode 2 |Next: Not Getting the Band Back Together

The Re-AnimatorsIt might be possible to keep the rock-star era alive, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.

By Miles Raymer

November 29, 2007

A maroon T-shirt with led zeppelin and 1973 tour printed in yellow on the front is going on the block at Christie’s in New York this Saturday. It’s one of just a handful made for the band’s road crew, and it’s expected to go for around $1,500. When I think about that shirt—probably saved from ending up as a shop rag only by luck, and now treated as an object of veneration—I’m reminded of everything that’s terrible about the rock ’n’ roll establishment.

If 30 is the new 20, the new 30 must be somewhere between 45 and 70, considering how many people in that age bracket seem afflicted with a 30-year-old’s anxiety about becoming unhip. Pop is about destruction, about making something new and fun out of the bits and pieces of the past, but these self-serious boomers are fighting tooth and nail to keep the youth culture of the 60s and 70s alive—inflating its myth and exalting it so aggressively you’d think they’ve taken every musical development since 1983 as a personal affront. But despite their best efforts, and despite the presence of huge conglomerates in the industry—the Big Four, Clear Channel, Live Nation—music culture in the new century is less monolithic today than it was back then. It’s more fractured and less centralized, and it’s changing constantly at a rate that confounds most people who weren’t raised in the rapid-fire media environment of the past 25 years.

The old guard’s response is to bombard us with nostalgia: reunion shows from every rock band to go platinum during the era of the longhairs, the yearlong partyjust threw itself for its 40th birthday, the ceaseless proclamations that the 60s were the golden age of pop music. It’d be oppressive even if it weren’t fraudulent. Even longtime industry commentator/curmudgeon Bob Lefsetz, no stranger to outsize nostalgia himself, is getting sick of it—which puts me in the uncomfortable position of agreeing with him. In a November 16 blog post about Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood’s $250-a-ticket sort-of Blind Faith reunion, he asks, “What’s next? Reunions of bands that didn’t exist in the first place? Is Eric Clapton going to go out with David Gilmour? Is Ozzy going to tour with Alice Cooper as part of the same band? We are really scraping the barrel here.” The motive for all these reunions, he says, is all too obvious. “Everybody’s cleaned up. And now cleaning up. That old soul, that’s gone, been long eviscerated, and the only people who won’t admit this is those on the take.”

The parts of the industry that perpetuate this platinum-card nostalgia do it for more than just money, though. Rock stars decades past their prime get propped up by their media contemporaries because they’re artifacts from a time when rock stars really mattered, before they got crowded out of the pop landscape by swarms of smaller acts playing to smaller crowds—acts that don’t need music-industry supermoguls to distribute their records or caravans of tour buses to play their shows. The Led Zeppelin reunion is a Potemkin village built by and for Jann Wenner types who can’t get their minds right with the way the business works now.

columnist and B-list neocon David Brooks is one of those people who still believes in the rock star—which shouldn’t surprise anybody, given that disconnection from reality is a prerequisite for neocon credentials. In a November 20 op-ed called “The Segmented Society” he mourns the passing of a fictitious pop monoculture, imagining it as a nation of fans united across social, class, and ethnic lines by a few acts that inherited the “long conversation” of American music and integrated rock, blues, country, and soul—utopia as embodied by the E Street Band, essentially. Of course, talking this way in 2007 leaves out everybody whose musical taste was forever changed by the mainstreaming of hip-hop—to say nothing of American artists influenced by bhangra, Afrobeat, or Balkan brass bands. In reality monoculture is never good for society: it was people united by the music Brooks worships who beat up punks, burned disco records, and made the Top 40 an artistic wasteland for the better part of two decades.

“It seems that whatever story I cover,” Brooks writes, “people are anxious about fragmentation and longing for cohesion. This is the driving fear behind the inequality and immigration debates, behind worries of polarization and behind the entire Obama candidacy.” But it’s not so much fragmentation that Brooks and his ilk seem bothered by—it often sounds like they resent plain old individualism. “People who have built up cultural capital and pride themselves on their superior discernment,” he explains, “are naturally going to cultivate ever more obscure musical tastes. I’m not sure they enjoy music more than the throngs who sat around listening to Led Zeppelin, but they can certainly feel more individualistic and special.” Apparently arriving at your tastes through search and discovery—as opposed to just going along with what everybody else likes—is indicative of some sort of character flaw.

The fact of the matter is that a fractured music culture is strong music culture. Of course there are drawbacks to the 24-7 total-spectrum overload of the current marketplace—more music probably does mean more bad music—but for the artists and fans who are adapting to it, the mind-blowing quantity and diversity of output has weakened if not collapsed the barriers between genres and scenes. Heterogeneity in listening habits is quickly becoming the rule. Musicians working outside the mainstream no longer need resign themselves to total obscurity, and listeners whose tastes aren’t reflected in the charts don’t have to struggle to find entertainment that suits them. Artists are pulling together styles, like indie rock and mainstream hip-hop, that used to be separated by seemingly insurmountable social obstacles—the Postal Service takes cues from Timbaland, Timbaland collaborates with the Hives. And increased exposure for formerly ghettoized subcultures makes it hard to imagine anyone these days getting his ass kicked just for having green hair. It’s not like all these developments have robbed the world of the kind of transcendent songs that work their way into the heart of every single person with actual ears, either. Did David Brooks miss out on “Umbrella”?

So what if the rock star is obsolete? He only really mattered for as long as the boomers were in charge, which is to say long enough. There’s no new Rolling Stones on the way, and that’s fine. Our culture may be fractured, but that just means this generation’s musical legacy will look more like an intricate mosaic than like a few monoliths. If nobody’s desperate enough to spend $1,500 for a used band T-shirt 30 years from now, the world will be a better place.   

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PARIS (AFP) — Ten years since the height of Daft Punk mania, Paris has produced a new duo of house music heros.

Such is the buzz surrounding Justice, whose debut album has sold 100,000 copies in France and 300,000 elsewhere in Europe, that the pair have been labelled the “saviours of electro” by the music press and fans.

The two 20-somethings at the centre of this messianic-like hero worship would rather keep their feet on the ground and reject the sense of responsibility from such highfalutin titles.

But the reception given to Justice highlights the latent thirst in France for new home-grown electronic music stars, with the nation in waiting since Daft Punk stormed the world and had everyone talking about the “French touch” at the end of the 1990s.

“We never put pressure on ourselves by saying ?they are waiting for us, we need to save electro in France?,” 25-year-old Xavier de Rosnay, told AFP in an interview.

“We don?t have that pretension and neither do we want to do it: we don?t think that electro needs to be saved.”

Prophets? Messiahs? The religious parallels are unmissable, however.

Their debut album has a Christian-style cross as its title and live performances start with fans brandishing the symbol in expectation before the duo arrive on stage as thick, saturated basslines build up.

“We just wanted to make a pop or modern disco album,” says de Rosnay.

Whatever their intentions, de Rosnay and his 28-year-old sidekick Gaspard Auge have succeeded in leading French house music out of the dark and have made people talk about a “Paris scene” again.

Justice were one of the most talked about acts at this year?s Sonar event in Barcelona, Europe?s biggest electronic music festival, and the label at the heart of the Paris revival, Ed Banger, showcased a number of new artists including Feadz, Uffie and DJ Mehdi.

Having already played in Australia, Britain, Japan and the United States, the pair are currently touring in France before starting a world tour from February-September next year.

Even before the release of their album in June, Justice were already building up a fan base by word-of-mouth thanks to several releases and remixes of Britney Spears, Franz Ferdinand and Justin Timberlake.

The remix of Britney Spears shows how the pair unashamedly take influences from pop music and incorporate them in their core electro house sound.

De Rosnay says he is influenced by “all the pop of the 90s, what was playing on the radio and on television, from Nirvana to Snoop Dogg.”

“From Elvis to Bowie including The Beatles and The White Stripes, the idea of pop has always been to make music as well as everything that goes around it, including the image. It?s fascinating,” he adds.

As well as the cross motif used on the album and at concerts, de Rosnay and Auge have done fashion-style photo shoots for a host of music magazines and their video won best music video 2007 at the MTV Europe Music Awards in Munich.

“It?s fun to play with all the elements at our disposal to make up the pop persona of Justice,” says de Rosnay. “It is not through us, because we?re not rock stars, but through everything else: the artwork on the album or the stage show at concerts.”

The big cross “is our David Bowie, it works almost like a person in the eyes of the public”, he adds.

Gaspard Auge, who sports the same moustache as the singer of Motorhead, says that hardrock also influenced Justice, although he confesses to not really being a fan of the music.

The Daft Punk duo, who have released a new live album and DVD recently, have sold about six million records.

The first of their three studio albums, “Homework”, was the starting point in 1997 of what became known as the “French touch” wave as French house music took off in nightclubs around the world.