French Female Vocalists

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.