ma jeunesse fout le camp:
le monde de Françoise Hardy
Le premier page de françoise sur le web !
Born in Paris on January 14, 1944, Françoise Hardy began auditioning for record labels in the spring of 1960. She was eventually picked-up by Vogue Records and in 1962 released her first single "Tous Les Garçons et Les Filles" ("All the Boys and Girls"). It was a massive hit in France and even made the British charts some time later.
"Françoise Hardy appeared in Paris at a time when the city was still very much under the spell of Sylvie Vartan, and the ensuing phenomenon that was politely known as the Ye-Ye Girls. Sylvie and her singer-husband Johnny Halliday dominated the music scene, for they carried with them all the spangle and glitter that goes along with the more sensational movements in popular music. Sylvie and Johnny were France's answer to rock and roll and the powerful pop culture that was emerging in the United States."1 And almost to secure their poplarity both Vartan and Holliday released French versions of practically every US hit from that period, "The Locomotion" and "Black is Black" for example.
Françoise's music was a welcome relief from the flash of her contemporaries. Her songs were dreams, ". . .hopes and disappointments. . .of what was happening around her."2 What also sets Françoise apart from the other "Ye-Ye Girls" (Vartan, France Gall, etc) is that she wasn't simply the product of some producer's vision of a hit singer. She wrote 80% of material the material she perfomed, meaning she had an emotional attachment to her music. It showed through in the production of her songs and attributed to her success.
Today, Françoise has been making a bit of a comeback. She has a new album out, Le Danger. And last year she appeared on two songs by other artists. The first was Malcolm McClaren's PARIS album, she sings on "Revenge of the Flowers", and on the COUTNRY HOUSE EP by Blur she sings on "To the End." Her appearance on these two albums by British artists is testement to her cross-over success in Britain during the sixties, something that is difficult for any French artist to do.
If you find a Françoise Hardy album while rumaging through the used record bins in the United States, chances are it is on the 4 Corners Record label. Most of her early albums were released by this label, a division of Kapp Records, in their valliant attempt to bring foreign artists to the US. Her later albums (late '60's) were picked-up by Reprise Reocrds.