By Alexander B. Tresniowski/Reported by Wendy Cole

Unless you're a rapper, in a heavy-metal band or Madonna, you've got to sing your heart out to make a dent in today's pop charts. Fortunately, that's just what French sensation Patricia Kaas does in Scene de Vie, her first album to be released in the U.S. She was just an 18-year-old raspy-voiced torch singer when Gerard Depardieu discovered her in 1985; two big-selling albums later, Kaas, who sings only in French, is her country's reigning chanteuse--its Edith Piaf for the 1990s. "I'm not really running after record sales," says Kaas. "If only a few people come to see me sing, that will be very good."