Last year, rising French pop star Miki recorded a cover of Elsa’s 80s smash T’en va pas. Alas, no video:
This is the original:
I thought, let’s check out how many other versions I can find. I’ll leave the tv-talentshow auditions out, this Japanese cover is close to the original but quite cool:
This Joyce Jonathan version, more acoustic and less synths, is also very good:
Dina Jeanne released only singles so far, starting in 2020, so she’s taking things slow (I guess). She likes Aznavour, Barbara, and her own songs have a classic chanson vibe. From what I’ve heard so far, she can sing quite powerful, but also very breathy. And that comes in handy in this sensual duet with Benjamin Biolay, just released:
Violetta Cuche = Vio, a French singer, featured here earlier. She has a new song out, a ballad that’s an ode to friendship, ‘a hug, a caress for everyone who’s feeling alone against the world’, as Vio states on her Facebook. Earlier singles by Vio were more beat driven, and cool, this song is different but cool too:
On her Facebook, Vio posted a very nice French translation of Lykke Li’s ‘I Follow Rivers’, hope she will put that on her YouTube channel. This Alain Souchon cover is great too:
ML is the moniker of Maria-Laetitia Mattern, a Belgian singer who was featured earlier on this blog. Her music and voice refer to Hardy, Feist, Jacklin. ‘La fête’ is a delicate song, written in one go on a national holiday, about how everyone around you is happy, and you’re just not feeling it.
Also very nice, from 2022, this collab with Flore Benguigui (ex-L’imperatrice):
Album coming up, posted a few tracks on this blog before. This new single is upbeat, sunny, and features those breathy vocals of Melyssa Lemieux in a glorious fashion:
Melyssa was also part of the tender, more folksy Libelle:
So, i got this cover of Françoise Hardy’s Message Personnel by ElodieO. An updated version, with the desperation of the original in tact.
It’s one of the most gorgeous songs of Hardy, and covered many times. Here are a handful of remarkable versions. Like this one, in English:
A duet version, by two great vocalists:
France covering Françoise:
This is what they call a ‘sad banger’, crying in the discotheque:
Lots of fx, almost shoegaze:
Oh, the voice of Eva de Marce. It’s like running your fingers over a silk négligé. Like the first sun on a late spring morning, peeping through the curtains. Like fat strawberries, bursting on your tongue. Eva is the singer of Mexican duo Los Eclipses, but other producers love to add her vocals to their songs too. Like Jiony, from Mexico too. On his new album, Eva sings two tracks. Trip hop vibes, fat beats & sultriness.
Not the first time Jiony asked Eva to sing a French song, this is from 2022:
New name on the block (ok well, new to me, she’s been making records since 2020), with a lotta soul & sexuality. Oddly enough, this video is just a fragment of the full song:
This is the full song:
I was clicking away on Spotify, when I suddenly heard this GEM of a song by Kolinga. Kept listening. And again. What a voice. What emotional depth.
Kolinga writes about this track: ‘This is the most necessary song I have ever written. In the midst of perinatal grief, while I was still bleeding, these are the words and sounds I needed to put down. Amidst the taboo, the pain, the guilt that we are told never to feel. I wanted to bring all these emotions to life, to freeze them forever, not only for myself but also for all those who couldn’t do it, all those who no one wanted to listen to. This song is also for that wonderful soul who did me the honor of accompanying me on this journey, a request for forgiveness on behalf of our societies that violently reject everything that cannot be seen. All this, in the most complete vulnerability of just a guitar and a voice.’
One of the stronger songs on the Cavale album, with just a piano: