Claire Pommet, known professionally as Pomme, is a French singer, songwriter, and musician. Born and raised near Lyon, she learned to play several instruments at a young age. Pommet’s stage name “Pomme”, which derives from her last name, was a nickname used by her friends at university. In early 2015, Pomme was signed to Polydor Records and began working on her debut EP ‘En Cavale’. 2016 She released her debut single “J’suis pas dupe” in June 2015. Following the EP’s release in January 2016, it received a positive reception and was promoted with music videos and concerts.
Pomme’s music incorporates chanson française, folk-pop, French pop and indie folk. The journalists of Libération and Le Figaro emphasized the quality of Pomme’s live performances, during which she primarily plays the autoharp and the guitar. The lyrics she writes often evoke themes of love, death, and “everyday situations that resort to romanticism”. She has dedicated songs to her wife and Quebec singer Safia Nolin. Other topics she explored are intimacy, feminism, and environmentalism, which she considered to be “natural and obvious to me for my generation and for myself.”
In September 2017, aged 21, she performed for the first time at La Boule Noire in Paris. In October she released her first chanson francaise album, titled ‘A peu pres’; it was described as a mixture of pop and folk by Salome Rouzerol-Douglas in Le Figaro. It was “very encouraging” according to Gilles Renault in Liberation. At the same time, Marie-Catherine Mardi of RFI said that “the lyrics do not convince [in their entirety]” but praised Pommet’s voice. Despite the acclaim received, Pomme expressed frustration towards the album since she felt trapped by “the desire to please [others] more” instead of herself. She performed in the first part of the Asaf Avidan tour in autumn 2017.
In February 2018, she performed at the Café de la Danse in Paris, after having performed as an opening act for Louane and Vianney, then took the stage in La Cigale in mid-2018 and in La Trianon in early 2019. In 2019, she released her second studio album ‘Les Failles’ (2019), which was later reissued a year later. Described by Pomme as an album with “absolute truth and humility”, she conceived it while reflecting on a breakup. In February 2020, she won the Victoires de la Musique award for album révélation (“newcomer album“) of the year with Les Failles. The singer later released the EP Quarantine Phone Sessions in May 2020, which she stated to be available only during the COVID-19 lockdowns.
In 2021, she was crowned artiste féminine (“female artist“) of the year. On New Year’s Day, Pomme revealed plans of releasing a third studio album in 2022 through her Twitter account. Later in that month, her collaboration “Everything Matters” with Norwegian singer-songwriter Aurora was released as a single from the latter’s third studio album, The Gods We Can Touch (2022). In May 2022, she published the children’s book Sous les paupières with French singer Pauline de Tarragon, who also did the illustrations.
