I've moved 2 years ago and now live a couple of kilometers from Rennes.
Rennes' most famous artist in France is Etienne Daho, who'll be ending next year's tour here in Rennes.
That's pop music, no great voice, a form of melancholy, odd dancing and a reminder of my school days whenever I listen to his early 80s hits.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqeJUGzvnq0
Daho played in Olivier Assayas' first movie, Désordre, and Kim played in Assayas's Boarding Gate.
Daho's said to have come to music after being moved by Marquis de Sade, the most talked about local band of the time (77-81).
They ain't as fun and the singer does have a voice ; could be tagged as cold wave to make it short.
They've reformed on a day I was elsewhere, but should be back in may in another town in Brittany.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mqn4-otKiKg
A bit apart seemed to have been Dominic Sonic who still plays from time to time.
I used to like his first album for the guitar sound.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuhC3F49ESo
Then there's Niagara, who sold lots of records in the late 80s (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdwvVMltlTw) and bigger-selling Pascal Obispo, who started as a bass player in a band called Senso, formed by Marquis de Sade co-founder Christian Dargelos. There will be no link to his current music, I'm not attracted to it.
Rennes has a big festival in early December, called les Transmusicales. Mostly up and coming bands, you tend not to go there cause you don't know any names.
Still well talked about in France.
The town has lots of pubs where musicians play (Bar'Hic, Penny Lane... and Mondo Bizarro in the middle of nowhere to greet unknown French bands whatever they play and punk "legends" such as Peter and the Test Tube Babies, or former Ramones replacements), plus small venues such as the Antipode (Thee Oh Sees, Swans played there) and the oddly built Ubu, plus bigger venues called le Liberté and l'Etage.
It's a students town.
And it seems that my new hometown north of Rennes is Alan Stivell's hometown too. Not my kind of music...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMQbcGNs9kg