Too often reduced to Deshabillez-moi, Juliette Gréco was not only the ultimate Existentialist poster girl of the late 40s, but also the most charismatic chanteuse of the post-Piaf chanson. She still is, her brand new album Ca se traverse et c'est beau featuring stunning lyrics by Amélie Nothomb and Jean-Claude Carrière, among others. Yesterday, the mysterious dark-haired girl who once was asked by Boris Vian why she never said a word, turned 85. Belated bon anniversaire, Muse, Amoureuse, Immortelle.
Oh la la. More here . Feminist dismissal here .
Here's an idea: let gorgeous filles like Claire Keim, Jenifer and Camelia Jordana sing poems by Verlaine, Baudelaire, Elouard and Carême. Add some garçons (Arthur H, Marc Lavoine, Babx), some unsinkable legends (Ferré, Hardy, Nougarro) and you have La Bande des Mots . A compilation to raise money for handicapped students, and to help popularize the great French poets. Not every poem is fit to be sung, to be honest. But Verlaine's Il pleure dans mon coeur by Claire Keim sure makes excellent FS-material. She's certainly not the first to sing Verlaine's poem, many classical soprano's did [...]
In 1965, comic illustrator Jean-Claude Forest created futuristic heroine Marie Mathématique for French TV, kind of a little sister of Bébé Cyanure (Baby Cyanide) and 60s icon Barbarella who brought Forest world fame and was played by Jane Fonda in Roger Vadim's masturbation blockbuster. Venusian Marie, "la jeune fille comme il faut", appeared in six all-too short episodes within ORTF's Dim Dam Dom tv magazine - a pop art kitten sexed up additionally by the cool of singer/ storyteller Serge Gainsbourg. Extraordinary stuff, not to be missed. Giggles and chuckles by another [...]
Remember electronic fille Fusée Dorée ? You can download her new EP for free on Bandcamp . I strongly recommend the guitaristic Un autre film.
Problem with Jan/ Feb releases is that they usually are forgotten by the end of the year. Not this one. We already fell in love with Québecoise singer Marie-Pierre Arthur after discovering her on Buck 65 's brilliant 20 Odd Years and her first, self-titled solo effort featuring the lovely folk-pop gem Pourquoi in 2011. Her brand new album, Aux Alentours, features finest eclectic fille pop all the way, combining shades of 70s glam rock, intricate touches of 80s dream pop and glimpses of retro attitude: Her voice encompasses the raw and the smooth perfectly, [...]
Last year was a French-Canadian fille fest, this year the guys put in some weight. Well, one guy, and David Giguère gets help from one of our alltime fave Quebecoises ( Ariane Moffatt , who produced), from Fanny Bloom (who sings a too short duet) and Camille Poliquin as his choriste. Giguere, also known as an actor is Canada, made quite an impression with his first single L'Atelier . His debut album is a folktronic affair, with breezy melodies, heartfelt lyrics and modern soundscapes. His voice is a bit lazy, offbeat, a bit [...]
Brazilian singer Luciana Mello recorded a French version of Serge Gainsbourg's latinized ode to coffee-coloured beauties Couleur Café on her 6th album (called 6 Solo). In the video above you don't see French singer Corneille , but he's on the album version. Luciana comes from a musical family, her dad's Brazilian funk pioneer Jair Rodrigues , her brother Jair Oliviera is a music producer. Not sure if Luciana recorded in French before, but this sure's convincing. Listen to more Luciana via Soundcloud . (Merci to Under Paris blog for the tip) [...]
Quirky French singer Anaïs new single is a cover (see original version here ), the first track from a new covers album. Though we love covers at FS, we're also sceptical. The reason you didn't find a post about the new Olivia Ruiz-EP is that her swing covers are avarage, not to say below avarage. And Olivia in English...I don't know. On her upcoming album A l'eau de javel, Anaïs sings tracks by Edith Piaf, Rina Ketty and other 40s singers, whom she prefers over, say, Madonna and Mylene Farmer (good choice). I also heard a version [...]
Last song on Diane Dufresne's Turbulences, 1982. Written by Monsieur G., and definitely not a virgin suicide.
Before ex-GDR superstar actor and chanteur Manfred Krug performed ultimately dreadful versions of old swing standards in Germany's never-ending Tatort crime show, he was nothing less than the greatest soul man between Rostock and Karl-Marx-Stadt. With Ein Hauch von Frühling (1973) he transformed East German record label Amiga for a moment into Erich Honecker's Motown. The éminence grise behind him was pianist and band leader Günther Fischer, who composed and arranged those intricate funky grooves that were tailor-made for Krug's seemingly feeble tenor voice. Inbetween they explored some other genres, as on 74's Greens, an international song collection [...]
Jolie mash-up of Jacko's Beat It and SG's Comic Strip by the prolific DJ ComaR who already contributed to the superb Je Deteste Serge compilation in 2010. Two tunes obviously made for each other.
This is not a Ritchie Blackmore tune. Hush was written by Joe South for Billy Joe Royal in 1967, and only the following year Deep Purple recorded the song that became quite a huge hit in the US. Gallic cover king Johnny Hallyday recorded a quite lame French version a few months later, while Montréal-based yé-yé chanteuse Jenny Rock transformed the harmless psych/ bluespop song with the pushy organ into a sexy rollercoaster ride, fast, breathless, and highly energetic – a nice example that some songs simply work better with female vocals. No surprise that Jenny, [...]
Guestpost! David B. on his new French love. Anna Flori-Lamour from Paris put out her first album, "Je Ne M'excuse Pas", last June. Aside from her myspace site , there is not a lot of information on Anna, but it's always nice to find another pretty blonde chanteuse. "Réveillez moi en septembre", has a driving beat, Anna singing in a clear alto, with accompaniment suggestive of the early '702s (think Jefferson Airplane). The title track is similar in style: here's a video . Anna [...]
That girl obviously has the same idiosyncratic hairdresser as my cousin in Sachsen-Anhalt. After running away to Ibiza at age 15 to romance mythic schlock producer Michel Cretu - sadly to no avail -, Anett Ecklebe a.k.a. Toni Kater (Tomcat in German) had some minor hits in Germany before taking a sabbatical for almost six years. Her brand new album Sie fiel vom Himmel – She Fell From the Sky – features the same voice that is still irresistibly thin and girlish, telling a few more stories from the boudoir of a young woman turning 35 [...]
In 2003, Frànçois Marry moved from the French west coast to Bristol where he played trumpet for bands like Movietone or Camera Obscura. Now signed to Domino Records (Franz Ferdinand, Arctic Monkeys) with his fourth album E Volo Love – caution: palindrome –, he beguiles the English Roses with a nonstop soft boy mixture somewhere between Belle & Sebastian, Paul Simon and a dazed Dominique A, opening with Les Plus Beaux, doubtless a nice 5:00 a.m. starter. Alas, the other cuddle tunes never manage to wake you up. The somnolent reviewer of British Q magazine gave Frànçois 4 [...]
When a literary heavyweight and Nobel Prize candidate like António Lobo Antunes writes lyrics for you, you're playing Pop's pantheon. On her 11th album Fado/ Tango (also released as Não Ha Só Tangos em Paris, for whatever reasons), Portuguese fadista Cristina Branco fuses the solemn Fado heritage of predecessors like Amália Rodrigues with Tango's seductiveness, also frenchifying her spectrum with a fine cover version of Brel's Les Désespérés , and a jaunty musical setting of L'Invitation au Voyage from Charles Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal . High in the charts in Portugal last spring, [...]
A tip from a fellow 'zuchtmeisjes' (or fille sourire) fan Cor Hospes, this video by Korean singer Lucia. No idea what she's singing about, no clue if there's an album (I could only find a single and a few guestspots) and ok, not everything is as breezy as this one. But this one's great. The only K-Pop I know sounds like thi s, so Lucia is quite a difference.
This is the only shred of information I could trace of Maissiat. But boy, do you want to hear her. Think a young, sensual Mylene Farmer, produced by Dominique A. This is going to be BIG. Maissiat - Le départ
The everlasting Mme Gréco (b. 1927) is back, with another album . Featuring younger stars, like Marc Lavoine, Féfé and blonde Jersey girl Melody Gardot . Together they sing Sous les ponts de Paris, a standard dating back to 1914. Ponts, or bridges, are the recurring theme on Ça ce traverse et c'est beau, with covers and new songs. Like fellow living chanson legend Charles Aznavour, her voice isn't what it used to be - Gréco talks or growls more than she sings. Yet, she's still standing. One has to bow. Juliette Gréco & [...]
Filles Sourires
![[Live] Lucia (심규선)_어떤 날도, 어떤 말도 (acoustic ver.)](http://cdn.elbo.ws/youtube/MJQSR7v1y4A_130.jpg)
The Shins: “September” (b-side of “Simple Song” 7”)
St. Vincent - 'Cheerleader'
Jay-Z & Kanye West - Ni**as In Paris (Explicit)
OK Go - Needing/Getting - Official Video
M.I.A. - Bad Girls (Official Video)
James Blake – Live Album
Circo Voador anuncia shows de The Kooks, Foster The People, Friendly Fires, Gogol Bordello e mais
The Kills on Letterman (Video)
Download: James Blake Live Album (Unofficial)
