Nouvelle Vague (band)

Nouvelle Vague
Nouvelle Vague playing Rockefeller Music Hall, Norway in February 2007
Background information
Origin	Paris, France
Genres	Lounge, new wave, bossa nova
Years active	2003–present
Labels	PIAS Recordings
Members	Olivier Libaux Marc Collin Various singers
Past members	Various singers have included: Camille Mélanie Pain Nadéah Miranda Eloisia Phoebe Killdeer Gerald Toto Liset Alea Élodie Frégé Helena Noguerra Mareva Galanter Jenia Lubich

Various singers have included:

Nouvelle Vague is a French cover band led by musicians Olivier Libaux and Marc Collin. Their name means "new wave" in French, and refers simultaneously to the French New Wave cinema movement of the 1960s, to the new wave music movement of the 1970s and 1980s, which provides many of the songs that the band cover, and to bossa nova (Portuguese for "new wave"), a musical style that the band frequently uses in its arrangements.

The group's recordings and live performances have featured a large rotating cast of mostly female vocalists. Several of the artists who have performed with the band have also had successful solo careers, including Camille, Phoebe Killdeer, Mélanie Pain, and Nadéah Miranda.

The group's first album, the self-titled Nouvelle Vague, was released in 2004. Explaining how the project came about, Libaux later said: "Marc Collin and I were both musicians and producers in the French music industry when, in 2003, Marc called me with this very strange idea of covering Love Will Tear Us Apart in a bossa nova version. I thought this idea was absolutely crazy but very exciting. So we decided to get into the studio and try it out as soon as possible. Then we did Just Can't Get Enough and Guns Of Brixton. We put the album together in just eight months. And after that we called ourselves Nouvelle Vague ... and that's the story!"

The songs on the first album were recorded with female vocalists who reportedly had not previously heard the songs they would be covering. Eight singers feature on the album in total, including Eloisia, Camille, who performs four songs, and Mélanie Pain, who sings on two tracks. The album features covers of songs by XTC, Modern English, The Clash, Joy Division, Tuxedomoon, The Cure, and The Undertones. The album was a commercial success, peaking at number 69 in the French album charts and spending a total of 39 weeks in the top 200. In 2006 it was reported that the album had sold more than 200,000 copies worldwide.