{"id":610529,"date":"2026-07-29T20:40:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T20:40:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/610529\/"},"modified":"2026-07-29T20:40:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T20:40:16","slug":"kavinsky-french-dj-known-for-nightcall-dies-aged-50-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/610529\/","title":{"rendered":"Kavinsky: French DJ known for Nightcall dies aged 50 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The French<\/a> electronic musician Kavinsky, known for the song Nightcall which achieved popular status after its inclusion in the Ryan Gosling<\/a> film Drive<\/a>, has died aged 50.<\/p>\n

A police source speaking to French newspaper Le Figaro indicated that the suspected cause of death was a stroke. Kavinsky, real name Vincent Belorgey, had reportedly been complaining of headaches in recent days, and he was discovered at home after a concerned neighbour alerted emergency services.<\/p>\n

Parisian authorities are investigating his death but said \u201cno suspicious elements\u201d were found at his home.<\/p>\n

Emmanuel Macron<\/a> was among those paying tribute to him, calling him \u201ca source of French pride forever\u201d.<\/p>\n

Part of the rich electronic music scene in France that flourished in the wake of Daft Punk<\/a> and others, Belorgey earned so much acclaim for Nightcall that he ended up performing it at the closing ceremony of the Olympic Games in Paris in 2024, backed by the French band Phoenix and Belgian pop singer Ang\u00e8le on vocals.<\/p>\n

Born in Paris in 1975, Belorgey\u2019s music career took off in the mid-2000s. The high-energy electro of his debut single Testarossa Autodrive meant it dovetailed with the \u201cblog house\u201d scene that had also spawned French artists such as Justice and SebastiAn, and he was signed to the label Record Makers, with whom he released five EPs and two albums.<\/p>\n

With Brazilian singer Lovefoxxx on vocals, 2010\u2019s Nightcall became his most successful and renowned track. Co-produced with Daft Punk member Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, this prowling, nocturnal electronic reverie paired malevolence and romance in a way that made it a perfect choice for the opening credits of Nicolas Winding Refn\u2019s 2011 thriller Drive. It has been streamed more than half a billion times on Spotify alone, with another 350 million YouTube plays. It reached the French top 10 on release, with the version performed at the Olympics reaching number three.<\/p>\n

His debut album Outrun sketched out the grand concept for Belorgey\u2019s Kavinsky alter ego \u2013 a young man who crashes a Ferrari Testarossa in the 1980s and returns zombie-like in the 2000s \u2013 and it reached number two in the French album charts. He followed it with Reborn, in 2022.<\/p>\n

Along with the vintage Ferrari references and sunglasses-and-bomber-jacket fashion sense, his sound also harked back to 1980s and that decade\u2019s cinematic synths. \u201cEveryone says, that guy is stuck in the past,\u201d he said in a 2013 interview. \u201cI don\u2019t sit around missing things from older times \u2013 I\u2019m just from the 80s, and so my influences come from that period. That is what is in my veins.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Weeknd appeared on a version of Kavinsky\u2019s song Odd Look, and in 2022 Kavinsky said the pair would potentially work on new music together.<\/p>\n

Also paying tribute was French minister for culture Catherine P\u00e9gard, who said: \u201cFrance loses one of its most singular voices. From the film Drive to the Paris Olympics, the entire world had pulsed to Nightcall. Both danceable and nostalgic, his music will continue to resonate across generations and borders.\u201d – Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The French electronic musician Kavinsky, known for the song Nightcall which achieved popular status after its inclusion in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":610530,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[75],"tags":[18,6586,117,2220,19,17,11935,7384],"class_list":["post-610529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-eire","tag-emmanuel-macron","tag-entertainment","tag-france","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-paris","tag-ryan-gosling"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117005204164717262","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=610529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610529\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/610530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=610529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=610529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=610529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}