France need to send a big ballad again, nobody does them better than France!!! Its been too long and its annoying to see other countries do them and score high while France flops. French ballads always have that extra something that adds more to them while others come off as generic and run of the mill. Natasha and Sandrine set the bar high in the early 2000 and other others just couldn't match them so they flopped. Unfortunately those flops seem to have scared them and they have been genre hopping drastically ever since.
The classic French entries of the past always had that French feeling no matter what genre they were but recent entries (as much as I love them) just don't. In my opinion the most French France has been in the last 5 years was Patricia and Jessy so its no surprise to me those two have done the best while the others flopped. Only reason you can point to the French entries these days is because they stick out like a sore thumb and apparently not in a good way.
Look at Italy they got no problem being classically Italian and they seem to be rewarded on both ends so France need to do the same. They can experiment genres (as they have always done) but at the same time shouldn't sacrifice the cultural French feeling.
Actually, I find Amandine and Amaury very French as well, but maybe foreign people don't identify us in this genre !
Tenors like Amaury Vassili are amond those who sell most discs.
AS for Amandine, she's quite unique in France, but I find her really French. As I alraedy said, I identify her with people like Zaz... Only Anggun proposed something really not French. I think she wouldn't released Echo as a single in France normally. And it's so different from the 1st excerpt she released of her album... Sébastien Tellier and Les Fatals Picards also released something very French !
AS for ballads... The kind of ballads of 2001-2003 are seen as something really dated in France. And somehow, we only see these in Eurovision, no ? Actually singers like Julie Zenatti (who is steel among the possible names of the future) in women or Emmanuel Moire (rumored in 2010) in men, would be possible artists to sing one... But this kind of music fail to find any public, except if it's sung by Céline Dion !
But I doubt we see her in Eurovision again !
Now ballad singers go softer. As an example I love this song ! But it flopped big time ! And Chimène Badi abandonned this album to make gospel music in English which sells a lot in France... Poor Chimène is really laughed at in France also, said to be fat and ugly...
2 But I love her so much...
But as I said, despite what fans may think, we must escape from cheap pop and chose great French pop, even if it brings up low places. No one can compare Amandine Bourgeois's fate to Virginie Pouchain's one...