Hotel Costes

In Paris, the Hotel Costes is considered one of the hippest, most opulent and most romantic hotels in the city, with a bar that has become famous the world over. In the United States, the Hotel Costes is best-known as the namesake for a series of music compilations. The first of these compilations of lounge music, entitled simply ''Costes,'' was released in 1999. Between 1999 and 2005, eight different volumes of Hotel Costes music compilations were released to an ever widening audience. The genius behind the Hotel Costes phenomenon is DJ St'©phane Pompougnac. Born in 1968, Pompougnac began spinning at the bar at the Hotel Costes in 1997. The bar quickly became a magnet for lovers of lounge, house, and the world music scene. Pompougnac is known for his catholic tastes in music. A Hotel Costes compilation CD is as likely to have elements of Brazilian or Russian music as it is to have strains of American or French music. (It's revealing to note that Pompougnac was once a tourism major.) In addition to spawning a number of follow-up volumes, the original Costes CD also inspired a number of other ''locations compilations.''Due in large part to the enormous success of the Hotel Costes music series, Pompougnac became one of the best known DJs in the world. He has remixed for Madonna and worked with luminaries like Michael Stipe (REM), Cathy Battistessa, Juliette Oz, and Cl'©mentine.