Maryse Letarte

Christmas is nigh (40 days and counting), Christmas-albums and -songs are being released. Really looking forward to Michel Legrand’s seasonal album, featuring guestspots from Olivia Ruiz, Carla Bruni and Coeur de Pirate (preview here). One of the bestest Christmasalbums of recent date was 2008’s Des pas dans la neige by Canadian songstress Maryse Letarte. Only original tracks, very atmospherical, solid songs. Her album is re-released with a French bonus track, a translation of Boom Boom (originally sung in English) (it’s a Christmassong, trust me). Tips about French x-mas tracks are welcomed in the comments. This also gives me the opportunity to say that Christmasmusicblog Christmas-a-gogo has opened! Listen to more Maryse via her Soundcloud-page

Maryse Letarte – Boom Boom

Axelle et Aznavour

There aren’t that much certified filles fragiles who recorded Christmas-songs, alas. There’s of course Maryse Letarte (who recorded a whole seasonal album), there’s the EP by Tricot Machine, there’s the songs from FS X-Mas Project (Marianne Dissard, Maud Lübeck, Odile & Manou, etc), but other than that it’s mostly very kitschy, Céline Dion-like. This duet between Axelle Red & Charles Aznavour is from a reasonable album called Noël Ensemble that also sports duets between Katerine & Anna Karina and Calogero & Zazie. And a few turkeys.

Axelle Red & Charles Aznavour – Noël à Paris

Santa, Je t’aime

In addition to the opening of my Christmas musicblog, I will post French (or French themed) Christmas songs on this blog too. The Superions are a side-project of Fred Schneider, singer of the B-52’s. It’s synth-driven and funny. Well, they mean it to be funny. Decide for yourself, listen to their album Destination…Christmas here. One of the tracks that caught my attention was Santa, Je t’aime. This is a very loose rework of one of the very first Je t’aime… moi non plus-parodys by Bourvil. Funny? Mwoh. Sexy? We heard far sexier tunes on this blog. Still, it’s something that’s appropriate for this blog. And I can post nice pictures with it. So there.

The Superions – Santa, je t’aime

UPDATE: there’s a VIDEO