Closely associated with Nouvelle Vague and Villeneuve, Mélanie Pain is a French singer who made her solo album debut in 2009 with My Name. Hailing from Aix-en-Provence, France, she cites influences that include Sonic Youth, the Smiths, Pixies, PJ Harvey, and Nick Drake.
She first made a name for herself as a vocalist on the M83 album Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts (2003), singing on the songs “Run Into Flowers,” “0078h,” and “Beauties Can Die.”
The following year she was featured on Nouvelle Vague (2004), the eponymous album debut by the ’80s revival group led by Marc Collin and Olivier Libaux on which she sang cover versions of P.I.L.’s “This Is Not a Love Song” and the Undertones’ “Teenage Kicks.”
Around this same time, she collaborated with Benoît de Villeneuve on his full-length debut as Villeneuve, First Date (2005), on which she sang most of the album’s songs.
Her collaborations continued in subsequent years, most notably her closer association with Nouvelle Vague. On the group’s second album, Bande à Part (2006), she sang five songs, among them cover versions of Blondie’s “Heart of Glass” and New Order’s “Blue Monday,” and on their third album, 3 (2009), she sang a version of Depeche Mode’s “Master and Servant” alongside Martin Gore and a version of Echo & the Bunnymen’s “All My Colours” alongside Ian McCulloch.
Upon signing to the Parisian label Cinq 7, Pain made her full-length solo debut in 2009 with My Name, an album of folk-pop chansons sung in both English and French, most of them co-written by Villeneuve.