The French Feminist Playlist II: Pomme and the rise of politically engaged pop

Pomme performing at L’Olympia in Paris. Photo: Super Eagle Hack, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

‘The French feminist playlist’ explores how feminism has come to be so influential in French music today, arguably to a greater extent than current Anglophone music. Throughout the series, Freya Swinburne reviews the music being made by female Francophone artists today, examining in each column individual artists and specific songs, in the hope that that by the end of the column, readers can compile their own playlist of Francophone feminist music.

Who is this Pomme? To an English audience, this French singer may seem unknown, mysterious, allusive. Why is she called ‘apple’, I hear you asking. How does she relate to this French Feminist Playlist? Well, in her 26 years, Claire Pommet, alias Pomme, has succeeded in blazing a trail through the French music scene. With three albums, an international tour on the way and two Victoires* under her belt, Pomme is no stranger to success. She now stands clearly alongside Angèle as a leader of the post-#Metoo generation of French artists. The newspaper Le Soir even hails her as ‘the voice and the face of this new generation of uninhibited, socially engaged singers working to inspire change in today’s society.’ As a result, her melancholic, dreamlike melodies have become synonymous with the fight for equality in the music industry. So, how has she achieved this? 

Interestingly, Pomme has not always composed her songs with a political intent. Nor does she ‘write [her] music with the desire to change the world.’ Even so, feminism forms the subliminal core of her work, as she makes fighting for women’s rights intrinsic to her overall engagement. It is therefore no surprise that she has earned a reputation as one of the leading activists in this new collective of French artists. This is perhaps most obviously expressed across her social media profiles (@Pommeofficial). Here, she makes use of her growing fame to ‘demand equality and to raise awareness surrounding discrimination’ and other topics that she feels everyone should want to know about. Throughout her career, she has unsurprisingly faced backlash over this. For some, she is just a glorified music box, an object that should remain quiet about the inequalities and injustices which she has experienced and witnessed. But this is clearly not Pomme’s style; instead she frequently turns to social media to engage with her 600,000+ followers about such topics. 

In recent years, she has also rejected passivity and expressed her social engagement through her writing and support of open letters. For example, on the eve of the 2021 Victoires ceremony, Pomme released an open letter describing her entry onto the music scene and denouncing the sexism which she has experienced ever since. Here, she looked back on her ‘traumatising’ début in the industry and reflects upon the emotional abuse, manipulation and sexual harassment that she experienced between the ages of 15 and 17. In doing so, she aimed both to ‘speak for the thousands of other people’ who share in her experience and to illuminate the institutional sexism which ultimately undermines the whole music industry. 

In many ways, this is also what she seeks to achieve through her music. In the spirit of this French Feminist Playlist, here is a small collection of songs which demonstrate just some of the causes which Pomme stands for…

1. Grandiose, Les Failles (2019) 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIqA5sg5gZM

To the average listener, to the likes of you and I, Grandiose would seem to be among Pomme’s most personal songs. This gentle bop would also appear to be indicative of some of her strongest personal convictions , including the normalisation of lesbian love songs and the representation of LGBTQ+ stories in music. She summarised this stance in an interview with TerraFemina, arguing that ‘lesbian women are invisible in French music. I still dream of the day though when people will stop saying to me “ah, you wrote a lesbian song” because you would never say to another woman “look, you wrote a straight song.”’ 

This position is clear from Grandiose’s opening lyric, Depuis que je n’ai pas le droit/ Je veux un enfant dans le ventre (Ever since I lost the right/ I’ve wanted a child in my womb). Many interpreted this in France as a call for Medically Assisted Reproduction for all. However, since the release of the song, Pomme has revealed that it is actually about the ‘difficulty of reconciling the desire to have a child and being unable to identify yourself in the commonly accepted family model.’ Similarly to her open letter, Pomme therefore uses her personal experiences to cast light on broader issues. In doing so, she expresses her very personal brand of feminism. 

2. Je sais pas danser, Les Failles (2019)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWbDZUBuCbo

Pomme once again conveys her individual approach to feminism through her lilting ballad, Je sais pas danser. She strikingly writes Je vois mon corps partout/ Je le compare surtout, (I see my body everywhere/ I compare it above all else). In doing so, she calls into question her own body image and how that fits into the beauty standards set by magazines and social media. This lullaby-like song might seem to be an unlikely setting for a social critique. True to form, however, Pomme uses her position to attack beauty standards in French music and to criticise the lack of diversity represented across French media. 

3. Nelly, Consolation (2021) 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aM8ipEtgs0

Nelly, the final song on this mini-playlist is taken from Pomme’s most recent album, Consolation. Each song on this album is an ode to the feminist figures who have inspired Pomme over the years. This particular song is dedicated to none other than Nelly Arcan, a leading feminist voice in the 1990s and 2000s. She famously spoke out against the commodification of femininty and beauty standards in patriarchal society. By including snippets of one of Arcan’s speeches, Pomme once again draws attention to broader topics of feminist debate. 

This explicit endorsement of feminism clearly differs from the subtle though intrinsic feminist references throughout her earlier songs. However, she does not just include these figures and debates, she also explores her personal relationship to the icons themselves. In Nelly for example, she writes Tes yeux pourraient me voir comme la plus douce des amies/ Et tu pourrais t’asseoir là sur le rebord de mon lit (Your eyes could see me as the most gentle of friends, and you could sit down there on the edge of my bed). She evokes her emotions, her vulnerability and, in doing so, she maintains her unique expression of personal feminism within her music. 

All things considered, Pomme embodies many of the values which characterise the post-#Metoo generation. She continually harnesses her fame as a force for good in her efforts to raise awareness about discrimination and oppression. Although her social media and non-musical writing express her ferminism arguably more explicitly than her compositions, activism is at the heart of her work. As a result, she has undoubtedly earned her place as a leader of the French Feminist Playlist. 

*The French equivalent of the Brits.