French Female Vocalists

STEREO TOTAL!!!

La Grande Sophie

My fave psychedelic folk album released this year was Emily Loizeau's Pays Sauvage... If she sang in English and lived in a tree in Humboldt the freak-folkies would be all over it.

There were some great albums by French female singers on the charts this year, like Camelia Jordana and Coeur de Pirate.

French Female Singers

Christelle Delaney

tell me baout '50s guitar pickers like Marie-Josée Neuville and Nicole Louvier and why they are so elusive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejxlEeCXF_8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPAgAz8SfGQ

Marie's voice is startlingly similar to that of '60s popstar Stella Zelcer (later of the avant-prog group Magma), another figure who challenged the sexist nature of French pop music at the time. none of 'em have husky, seductive voices, but whateva.

some FFV's I've been liking lately:

• Anne Sylvestre - poet-singer-songwriter (and one of the very first French female singer-songwriters when she debuted in 1959) in the vein of Georges Brassens or Jacques Prévert. she's best know for her children's songs but was writing heavy pro-life and rape-themed lyrics by the '70s. I've heard only a tiny portion of her ~500 song discography but would recommend Les pierres dans mon jardin (1974), Une sorciere comme les autres (1975), and Bye mélanco (2007).

• Anne Vanderlove - Anglo-Americanophile folkie famous for her 1967 hit "Ballade en Novembre" but not much else. her warbly milkmaid voice and pristine guitar balladry can get a little cloying (cf. Joan Baez) on her early records, but her 1978 album Loguivy de la mer totally nails the spooked-out, Breton-Celtic psych-folk vibe that Emmanuelle Parrenin and Kristen Noguès did so well.

• Emanuelle Parrenin already has her own thread, which I threadjacked to blather about Véronique Chalot.

• I blathered about Kristen Noguès here, so that covers it.

• Danielle Messia - artsy '80s synthpop + old-school "classically-trained" vibrato-laden vocals. it works somehow. search De la main gauche (1982) or her much more traditional (and harder to find: I've tracked down 6 of its 11 tracks online, but that's it) posthumous album Les mots.

• Marina (Vénache) - lost the French version of American Idol about 5 years ago. search her only album Libellule (2008).

• Agnès Bihl - a 21st century Anne Sylvestre, sorta. search Merci maman merci papa (2005).

• anything and everything by Marie-Josée Neuville.

she's best know for her children's songs but was writing heavy pro-life and rape-themed lyrics by the '70s.

er, "pro-choice" is what I meant to write, but I r dumb.

*-Mama Béa Tékielski

search her 1976 album La folle if you are a fan of Catherine-Ribeiro-style freakouts (and if you're not then wtf is wrong with you)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFlN8zaLpLU

Juliette (Noureddine)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_qEYXnOiN0

Catherine Le Forestier

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPGA4hBD0BY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qF3IsdP6poU

huh. kind of a bonkers release from someone who usually records polite (musically, anyways) Edith Piaf chanson stuff. I think there's a Beth Ditto/Gossip dis in here somewhere (Il faut soigner son lookça c'est indispensable/ Je suis ronde et alors, je trouve ça formidable!/ Bouscouler les clichés tendance irrévérence/ Maintenant que Gossip a fait jurisprudence!) but I don't speak the language.

damn.

this is good.

http://cps-static.rovicorp.com/3/JPG_500/MI0001/822/MI0001822119.jpg

the collab with her husband of the time, andy williams, is just wonderful.

Salomé Leclerc is nice and so is Liza Manili.

Now you have a great generation of female vocalists

Garance
Agnès Bihl
Camille
Clémence Savelli
Lise Martin
Affaire Capucine
Melissmell

La Féline's Vie future is a lovely slice of gently melancholy space pop.

The hivemind would like it, I think.

I like this, it's very spacious and gentle indeed.

From a genre that hasn't been mentioned yet : I love Fanny J's first album.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZhsTkeLmig

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8DCAYcnW6w

Love this from a couple of years back

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMbMJE0D4Dk

Surprised no-one has brought up Clara Luciani on here. Seems right up ILM's alley. Mainstream "sophisticated" indie pop

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85m-Qgo9_nE

Pas mal.

Reminds me of a mid-career Françoise Hardy

oh yeah, that was on my year-end playlist for whichever year (2018 I want to say?) it came out

Not so much French as Québécois but Klô Pelgag's Notre-Dame-des-Douleurs is a wonderful little LP of mildly eccentric baroque pop with a few stylistic curveballs here and there. Also worth checking out if you're… a Jean Leloup fan.