Once, French pop centred around the peculiar attractions of a silver-tongued Romeo called Johnny Halliday. Sure, there were the chansons and players like Edith Piaf, Juliette Greco, Serge Gainsbourg and Francoise Hardy to join Halliday on that list, but music with true pop appeal was thin on the ground. The land of all things chic, it seems, had one remarkable blind spot - apart from the odd curio like Je T'Aime or Vanessa Paradis - it was incapable of producing music to set the charts alight.
But that was then. The pop world now seems to be living in a prolonged year of the French and it's in club-land that the effect is most noticeable. Acts like Daft Punk and Dimitri From Paris set funky agendas and dance floors swoon. Two of the tunes which kept club-land reaching for the sky all summer long were the work of Daft Punk's Thomas Bangalter: Stardust's sublime Music Sounds Better With You and Bob Sinclair's Gym Tonic, with that quirky but ultimately trying Jane Fonda sample.
Perhaps the most intriguing of the new French breed to come this way are Air. Creating music which seems at odds with the dominant house beat of the rest of the pack, Air could well be sculpting a soundtrack for space travel. Their debut album, Moon Safari, is this year's must-have (and must-play) purchase for all trendy salons and knowing swingers.
A collection brimming with innovation and charm, it moves with louche ease from cultured cinematic delicacies to spectacular pop gems. That it has managed to last the pace since its early year release is testament to a great deal of panache and a winning appeal.
Moon Safari's idiosyncratic genius becomes clearer when you meet the people behind it. Jean-Benoit Dunckel and Nicolas Godin are not the pop stars from next door and it's certainly not easy to picture them in a Boyzone video shoot. They're an odd pairing - former mathematician Jean-Benoit is intense, alert and measured in his answers while former architect Nicolas is a more abrasive foil and prefers to provide tart replies when he can get away with it.
But when Air talk about their music, they suddenly switch on. For Jean-Benoit and Nicolas, their craft is everything and they seem genuinely puzzled to have cultivated a club-land following. "We thought it would be like a new take on classical music," Jean-Benoit says. "Classical music is beautiful, so many harmonies, so impressive. The sense of emotion is so powerful. Air is real artistic music, very precise. Yet we are now classed as dance music. We look at the likes of Daft Punk and Goldie and are genuinely amazed. What they do, we could never do."
In fact, even their perceived audience for what they have created lies far from the environs of a sweaty club. "I imagined people alone listening to it," Jean-Benoit states with a smile. "I thought it would have stayed underground. I did not expect this."
When Air talk of classicism, they also talk of Serge Gainsbourg. The French master may be enjoying a renaissance for his more innovative work of late, thanks to constant references via the likes of David Holmes and the Air boys, but would he have appreciated Moon Safari? "I don't think so," Nicolas muses. "We would be far too pop for him, he would be sad at the lack of harmonies and soul in our beats. To him, we would not have melody.
"Serge Gainsbourg was just such a great composer," Jean-Benoit enthuses. "He is the biggest influence on what we do and on the album by far. His music is part of French culture, he's like a God in France. He created a new form of music, a very influential style. He brought classical into pop music, the perfect combination of sensitivity and intelligence and he was way ahead of what everyone else was doing. A very clever man."
While Gainsbourg may have coloured some of their debut, Air are not merely about recreating the past and feel that to label the album easy-listening, as some have done, is to miss their agenda. Air are about the future, not some ironic embellishment of a kitsch past. "We want to be new, not back in the '70s," Jean-Benoit says. "The '70s thing is a background, a means to an end. You see, nostalgia is precise but melancholy is more general. We want to put the modern alongside the old. Our music is the representation of the future because everyone wants to go there. Imagine what our grandparents make of the Net or faxes. They're witnessing a future they never dreamed of."
Mention the intergalactic aspects to `Moon Safari and the pair nod earnestly. They realise that many see them as space cadets and, whether it's simply a ploy or not, have answers ready. Jean-Benoit reckons Air's music would be best appreciated "while floating through space in Captain Nemo's starship," while Nicolas is adamant about life on other planets. "Of course there's life on Mars. It's only logical after all if God created life on earth, why wouldn't he have done the same on other planets? There is life in space. This planet is not just the only special one in the galaxy. There's life floating around on other planets too."
Such quotes from the mouths of other acts would have been accompanied by all-knowing winks and grins, yet Air deliver them with plenty of sincerity. After all, as Nicolas maintains, Air would have much in common with any visiting life-form - "What would I say to an alien? Air are your brothers, man."
Perhaps some aliens infiltrated the theatres on their sell-out world tour which brought them to Dublin's Olympia last week. Certainly, the Air live show is a thing of many wonders. The six musicians onstage tease a spectrum of instruments (from theremins to antique Moogs) to produce the ultimate in space-rock extravaganzas. Add the vastly altered takes on much loved tracks and the kooky, all-white Agnes B. outfits sported onstage and you really have lift-off. It is certainly not your normal live affair.
Were Air happy to actually do this in the first place? "It seems to be something we had to do," explains Nicolas. "It seems to be obligatory for dance bands to have a live show but our music is not the sort you can jump up and down to. We are composers first, then producers, then performers."
"When you are playing live," Jean-Benoit continues, "you are going into the air but with a good band, it is not wasted, it is going straight to the heart of each person in the room. But we will never be the exploding, jumping guys on stage."
And we would never want them to be. Deconstructing Air can often miss the kernel of their art - this is simply beautiful pop music. Ask Jean-Benoit what his aims for Air are and he will smile. "We want to make people happy and create good vibes, no cold vibes. We want them to be contented and we want to make them dream." World domination can wait 'till morning.