Artist

Phoenix

Versailles, France

Phoenix is a music group from Versailles, France. Their discography on Gatefold includes 12 records.

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Albums tracked

178

In collections

—

Since

Biography

Before they were selling out Madison Square Garden, Phoenix were the guys hauling gear behind Air on French TV and tracking singles on their own Ghettoblaster imprint because nobody else gave a damn. Laurent Brancowitz came out of Darlin'—the indie-punk wreckage left behind when his bandmates went and turned into Daft Punk—and brought that garage-rock bite straight into Thomas Mars' obsession with smooth yacht-pop and French Touch filters. That friction defined them. You had four Versailles kids pulling apart Roxy Music and Prince records, forcing clean disco propulsion through tinny Stratocasters. Most bands who land a massive crossover smash get spooked and water down their sound. Not Phoenix. When Philippe Zdar got in the room to track Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, they threw out the major-label safety net, gambled on their own Loyauté label, and made a fucking pristine guitar-pop record that didn't have an ounce of fat on it. They hit the inevitable slump afterward by over-tinkering, buying obsolete Harrison mixing consoles and chasing obscure European synth patches. But they never pandered, and they never stopped trusting the beat.

Bio from The Clerk

The Arc of Phoenix

The pivots — what forced Phoenix to reinvent.

The Smooth Pivot to Berlin Guitars
A polished, R&B-inflected detour on 2004's Alphabetical left the band feeling boxed into smooth mid-tempo slickness. To break the gloss, they hired Swedish session drummer Thomas Hedlund in 2005 and relocated to Berlin to bash out songs live in the room. The result was 2006's It's Never Been Like That, a lean, urgent guitar record stripped entirely of digital safety nets. You hear it immediately in the interlocking jangle of 'Consolation Prizes,' raw and unpolished compared to the French Touch scene they left behind.
The Zdar Breakthrough
Cutting ties with EMI/Virgin, the band holed up in a Paris apartment in Montmartre with Philippe Zdar to make a do-or-die independent record for Glassnote and their own Loyauté imprint. 2009's Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix married Hedlund's motoring krautrock drum attack with razor-sharp pop songwriting and analog synth hooks. Songs like '1901' and 'Lisztomania' exploded into global festival anthems without sacrificing an ounce of their idiosyncrasies. It was a massive, deserved coup that bagged them a Grammy and changed indie-pop production for a decade.
Console Obsessions and Italo Nostalgia
Flush with festival headliner status, they went down the gear rabbit hole, buying the Harrison mixing console used on Michael Jackson's Thriller to track 2013's Bankrupt! at Motorbass. The sound grew denser, weirder, and deliberately harder to digest, leaning into blown-out digital distortion. By 2017's Ti Amo, they dialed back the bloat in favor of light-footed, sticky Italo disco grooves and summer synth romance. It alienated the casual rock fans who just wanted another radio banger, but the rhythmic core remained immaculate.
Louvre Quarantine and Parisian Victory Laps
The sudden loss of Philippe Zdar in 2019 shook the band to its foundation, forcing them to self-produce for the first time in years. Locked down during the pandemic, they set up gear inside Paris's Musée des Arts Décoratifs at the Louvre Palace to cut 2022's Alpha Zulu, chasing loose, artful dance-rock with guest spots from Ezra Koenig. By the time they anchored the 2024 Paris Olympics closing ceremony, they had transcended scene debates entirely. Four school friends from Versailles were suddenly the elder statesmen of French pop.

Influences

Air — Phoenix served as the backing band for Jean-Benoît Dunckel and Nicolas Godin on their late-nineties UK tour and television spots. You hear that lush, Moog-soaked lounge arrangement all over 'If I Ever Feel Better' from their debut record. It was an absolute masterclass in French pop arrangement before Phoenix ever had a proper record deal.
Prince — Thomas Mars has repeatedly pointed to Prince as the gold standard for blending dry drum-machine funk with razor-thin funk guitar lines. Listen to the brittle rhythm guitar chops and falsetto transitions on 'Run Run Run' to hear that Minneapolis sound filtered through Paris. The son of a bitch taught them how to make pop music that stays physically funky.
Roxy Music — The band have cited Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music's late-period record Avalon as their holy text for sophisticated, effortless pop production. It shows up in Mars' dry, unflappable vocal delivery and Deck d'Arcy's melodic bass work on tracks like 'Holdin' On Together.' They took Ferry's high-art yacht-rock posture and stripped away the seventies cheese.
The Strokes — When The Strokes blew up the garage scene, Phoenix took direct notes on Julian Casablancas' compressed vocal chains and the interlocking twin-guitar attack of Albert Hammond Jr. and Nick Valensi. You hear that urgent, dual-guitar push driving all over 2006's It's Never Been Like That, especially on 'Long Distance Call.' It snapped them out of their sophomore R&B slump and pushed them back onto their fretboards.
Neu! — Thomas Hedlund's signature drum approach in Phoenix is entirely built around the hypnotic Klaus Dinger motorik beat that Neu! stamped into history. Take the relentless, unswerving four-four drive powering 'Armistice' or '1901'—that's pure German krautrock momentum disguised as an indie dance hit. Without that forward engine, their songs would just float off into the ether.