Wave Back Listening Post 61. The key track of Clio’s eponymous debut album is Éric Rohmer est mort (Eric Rohmer Is Dead), a tribute to the New Wave director, who died in 2010: “I want more of him,” she laments, “of those lovers on suburban trains/Of Parisian squares...
French Fried Listening Post 52. When Sophie Tapie appeared on The Voice/France she wanted to perform songs by Johnny Cash but bowed to warnings of how French viewers might vote; she did Bruno Mars and Johnny Hallyday instead. Lesson learned, when the time came to...
Floating to the Top Listening Post 42. The second album by Jérémy Frérot and Florian Delavega explores and floats between innocence and experience, dream and reality, yesterday and today—and, as the title indicates, shadow and light. Just a year after their...
C’est la Vie Listening Post 35. Throughout his 40-year career, Francis Cabrel—the greatest French singer-songwriter of his generation—has woven strands of folk, blues, jazz, rock and pop into iconic songs of relationships, protest and social commentary. On his 13th...
Island Cadence Listening Post 30. Zouk emerged in Guadeloupe and Martinique as a carnival-beat music style, but in recent years it has taken on a more sensual cadence, conducive to slower dancing and love songs. It has also transcended its Caribbean origins,...
Alchemy on the Seine Listening Post 28. When a singer is gutsy enough to do an album of classic Paris chansons—even someone like Zaz (Isabelle Geffroy), with two hit records behind her—you can bet the army of Paris-lovers will be ready to pass judgment. Verdict:...
Voice of a Continent Listening Post 26. As a singer-songwriter, percussionist, choreographer and dancer, Dobet Gnahoré brings life experience to her music. In the Ki-Yi Mbock Company, a theater ensemble and training village in her native Côte d’Ivoire, she encountered...
Beauty from Misery Listening Post 23. Barbara was one of “Les 3 B,” a triumvirate of singer-songwriters—including Georges Brassens and Jacques Brel—who defended French chanson from the onslaught of American and British pop/rock in the Sixties. Her melancholy songs of...
First Magnitude Listening Post 19. Louane Emera knows success and sorrow. She turned all four judges’ chairs at her audition for the French version of The Voice, she won a César Award (the French Oscar) for her first film and saw her debut album go to number 1. She...
North Stars Listening Post 16. If you associate the North Wind only with cold air, open your ears. Le Vent du Nord, the four-man vanguard of the Québec folk scene, offers the sounds of melodeon and hurdy-gurdy, assorted strings (violin, bouzouki, guitar), rhythmic...
Platonic Challenge Listening Post 7. Can a man and a woman be Just Friends? The question has launched countless novels, films and songs—some that make us laugh or cry and others that induce yawns. Bastien Lanza, a 26-year-old singer-songwriter, has turned this...
Thank You Notes Listening Post 1. One of the great French-language singers of the twenty-first century, Québec-born Isabelle Boulay devotes her latest album to the work of her role model—and one of the masters of chanson française—of the twentieth. Like her...
