Clou (French for Nail) is the stage name of Anne-Claire Ducoudray a French singer-songwriter. Clou was born in 1983 in Paris to a family of music lovers with very eclectic musical tastes. She takes her pseudonym from her childhood nicknames, Anne-clown, given for her sense of humour, then Anne-Clou During her childhood, her parents enrolled her in piano class at the conservatory of the 20th arrondissement of Paris where she lived in Saint-Fargeau. She acquired a good musical foundation and musical ear and learned the discipline there. She was a student at the École du Télégraphe and then at the Collège Léon Gambetta.
She studied journalism and communication. Attracted by English, she finished her studies in the United States for a year, so that English was established for her until then as the language of composition for her songs. In 2013, she took her first steps on stage with her folk band, Folk’U.In 2014, she was the finalist for a radio crochet organized by France Inter. During this performance, the radio encouraged her to compose songs in French, which she would do five years later in her debut album Orage for 10 songs.
She says “I did not win the race, I came second but the simple fact of going to France Inter, on a radio of this quality, to be listened to and even heard really changed everything and allowed me to start and change my career orientation. All of this allowed me to do my first scenes on my own and simply take on my songs.”
She became a fashion press officer, but in 2015 she decided to leave her job to devote herself to her passion, music. In 2015, she opened for Benjamin Biolay’s concerts, and also those of Yves Simon, Vianney, Vincent Delerm and Thomas Dutronc. In 2018, she participated in the cover of the song “The Gauloises bleus” on the album tribute Génération(s) d’amerus by Yves Simon and collaborated with the band Cocoon on the song “Back to one” from the 2019 album Wood Fire.
In 2020, she released her first album Orages, produced by Dan Levy. When the album was released, she explained that she had suffered from her father’s “perverse behaviour towards her mother”. She devoted a song to it, Narcissus dealing with her “toxic relationship” with her “narcissist father”. In 2021, she was nominated for the Victoires de la Musique in the category of women’s revelation of the year. In 2021, she was nominated for the Chroniques lycéennes 2021-2022 of the Academie Charles-Cros for her song “Jusqu’ici Tout Va Bien” (At the Lique de l’Album Orages).
