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Francesca Blanchard Archives - Page 2 of 2 - County Tracks

How to Keep People Six Feet Away: Sing to Yourself and Wear a Wedding Dress

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Mar 272020
 
francesca blanchard did it to myself

Francesca Blanchard’s whimsical new music video was filmed in New York City well before the coronavirus crisis. But watching her wander through mobs of people now in the clip for her single “Did It To Myself,” I couldn’t help thinking, “Six feet apart, guys!”

But if you’re walking the streets in a wedding dress singing to yourself, people might steer clear regardless. Continue reading »

Songs To Stay Inside To

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Mar 192020
 
songs to stay inside

There are a million playlists to soundtrack your social distancing. But how about a playlist of songs about social distancing?

These 20 antisocial songs from Vermont artists new and old all touch on keeping your distance and staying inside. Some of them offer good advice for our current predicament. Others offer extremely bad advice. You should never take advice from a musician. Continue reading »

The Best New Songs of February 2020

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Feb 282020
 
best songs feb 2020
Bad Rat? – Transitional Forest


“Transitional Forest” is billed as the lead single of Bad Rat’s upcoming album This Time Around The Sun, but it’s almost two singles in one. The first half is a bit of a feint, a meditative meander that doesn’t predict the drop to come. With little warning, Marc Kamil’s mellow ballad becomes thudding  post-punk, little more than a shared guitar line connecting the two halves. Continue reading »

Dec 172019
 
best songs 2019

This Top 40 looks nothing like the actual Top 40. None of these songs charted, and I don’t think any of them aspired to. That is no knock against them, which probably goes without saying here – anyone reading music blogs knows that much. The adjectives “great” and “popular” occasionally attach themselves to the same track, but not often enough.

So just think of this as an alternate history of 2019 singles. It has no horses, and no town roads. It doesn’t teach love, patience, or pain, and isn’t 100% that anything. It also, as the headline says, only includes artists from one rather small state. But this wildly subjective, somewhat arbitrary survey of the past 12 months should serve as a small introduction to the wealth of talent in one community on the geographic fringe. There was a lot of wonderful music being made this year, much of it far from the big cities, or the Billboard charts. Duh. Continue reading »

The Best New Songs of July 2019

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Jul 312019
 
best new songs july 2019
Adam Rabin – The Other Room


You’re going to want to sing along to “The Other Room” after a listen or two – but I wouldn’t. The sketches of plot offered sound like a sci-fi family dystopia, a Black Mirror episode for children.

The Cheyenne Brando – Samsonite


So thoroughly does Endtime Hymns evoke certain bands that one begins looking for echoes everywhere. Is the title “My Jean Sebring” a nod to David Bowie’s “Jean Genie”? Does “Poisonhead” reference ABC’s “Poison Arrow”? Was “Privacy of Lucy” inspired by The Cure’s “Pictures of You”? Each connection a greater stretch than the last, and likely none intentional. Christian Hahn does explicitly cite the heyday of post-punk and new-wave in his bio though, and, sonically, the comparisons are everywhere. His next song might as well be titled “Bizarre Love Triangle Will Tear Us Apart.” Continue reading »

Self-Acceptance and ‘Say Anything’ Collide on Indie-R&B Gem

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Jul 192019
 
franchesca blanchard

“Baby” is not a song title that implies much backstory. For instance, here’s how Justin Bieber explained what inspired his hit of the same name: “I’m basically saying I really like this girl and would do anything to make her my girlfriend.”

Got it.

A lot of thought and a lot of living went into Vermont singer-songwriter Francesca Blanchard’s new song “Baby” though. The simple name masks some complicated feelings. She says she wrote it after returning from five months in Ecuador hiking and teaching guitar. A relationship that started shortly before she left had fizzled in the meantime, and her return precipitated a “quarter-life crisis.” Continue reading »

The Best Vermont Music of 2017 (So Far)

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Jun 222017
 

best vermont music

We’re finally at about the six-month mark at what has been a long and deeply stress-inducing year. But there’s perhaps some small comfort that 2017 has so far been a great year for music. So to celebrate being halfway through – as well as County Tracks’s own six-month birthday – we’re rounding up some of the best Vermont-made songs we’ve heard this year so far.

We narrowed the list down to a dozen for the sake of sanity, but couldn’t go without mentioning some of our other favorite tracks, which we listed at the bottom. We also rounded up as much as we could in a Spotify playlist. Enjoy! Continue reading »

Francesca Blanchard Chases Shy Wolves in Shimmery New Folk-Pop Video

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Feb 202017
 

francesca blanchard

In 1966, Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs had an unlikely hit with “Little Red Riding Hood,” a novelty song about a wolf putting the moves on a forest maiden (though after their previous hit “Wooly Bully,” perhaps nothing that followed can be described as unlikely). That wolf was lascivious, with leering lyrics like “What full lips you have / They’re sure to lure someone bad…” So much for sheep’s clothing!

The tables turn in Francesca Blanchard‘s new video for her terrific single “My Heart.” It stars the Michael Cera of wolves, shy and reticent as he leads her on a slo-mo forest chase. He’s like a more adult version of Hobbes to her Calvin and a whole lot different than Sam the Sham’s wolf – less “Wild Thing,” more Where the Wild Things Are. Continue reading »

A Beautiful Soul Cover of “This Land Is Your Land” To Get Us Through a Dark Inauguration Day

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Jan 202017
 

this land is your land

On a day that is scary for many people, we thought we’d post one of the more uplifting and hopeful pieces of music to come out of Vermont last year. It’s a gorgeous cover of “This Land Is Your Land” featuring a host of local musicians. Though originally recorded to support the state’s own Bernie Sanders, as Donald Trump prepares to get sworn in, the song stands above its original context as a plea for understanding and tolerance. It’s also a whole lot better than Bernie’s own foray into local music.

Soul singer Kat Wright, who recorded one of our favorite albums last year, sings lead on the bold gospel-soul arrangement. Backing Wright are (deep breath): singers Dwight & Nicole, Francesca Blanchard, Marie Claire Johnson, Smooth Antics’ Stephanie Lynn Heaghney, and Waylon Speed’s Kelly Ravin plus Wright’s Indomitable Soul Band (Bob Wagner on guitar, Josh Weinstein on bass, Ezra Oklan on drums, and Shane Hardiman on keys) with guitarists Lowell Thompson and Brett Hughes.

Whether you’ve heard of any of those names or not, this is a beautiful, moving cover of Woody Guthrie’s timeless song. And today we just might need it more than ever. Continue reading »