Phoenix - It's Never Been Like That (Deluxe Version) (2006)

Phoenix (read: Phoenix). Music critics can't pinpoint these Frenchmen who play completely unpredictable music. Yes, they love house, but besides that they love Serge Ginzburg, AC/DC, country and R-n-B. Among Phoenix's idols, Michael Jackson, Ennio Morricone, Eddie Van Halen and Iggy Pop have registered and coexist peacefully.
All this is probably because Paris is a city of cosmopolitans, and it was there that the history of the Phoenix group began in 1991. Three young men - Thomas Mars as vocalist, Deck D'Arcy on bass and guitarist Christian Mazzalai - organized an ordinary "garage" band. After some time, Christian's older brother Laurent Brancowitz - to his friends just "Branco" - left the team with which he had played before and joined a young musical group that did not even have a name yet. Since 1995, all four began touring clubs and restaurants in Paris and its suburbs, offering covers of famous hits by Prince and Hank Williams for the entertainment of the public.
But this could not last long. In 1997, the musicians finally chose a worthy name for themselves, and Phoenix released their first single - by the way, already on their own small label. Our heroes did not gain enormous fame on their first try, but the Parisian record company Source Records became interested in them. The group signed a contract and found themselves in very good company - among the clients of Source Records, for example, were Air, with whom Phoenix even recorded several times as a backing team. Then, for the next annual collection of the Phoenix label, they provided the composition “Heatwave”, which was a success, although it did not live up to the bosses’ hopes. “They told us: write a folk song,” Christian later said. “But we ended up with something completely opposite, more like disco.”
Then Phoenix began writing their debut album. The work was completed within just two months, because the musicians managed to gather around them a huge number of assistants: colleagues, friends and simply close relatives.