Fifty years on, Paris in the 1960s still seems pretty damn cool. Soon, modern-day music fans will be able to soak up that sense of style thanks to Light in the Attic's sub-label Future Days Recordings, which will be reissuing a series of five albums from beloved chanteuse Françoise Hardy.
The albums will land on CD on October 16, with vinyl following on January 29. These French-language LPs originally arrived on a yearly basis between 1962 and 1966. They didn't have titles, but they became colloquially known by the names of their most successful song. The albums are: 1962's Tous les garçons et les filles, 1963's Le Premier Bonheur du jour, 1964's Mon amie la rose, 1965's L'Amitie and 1966's La Maison où j'ai grandi. Interestingly, Mon amie la rose features Jimmy Page in his pre-Led Zeppelin days as a session musician.
While Hardy hasn't be involved with most reissues of her music, she granted an exclusive new interview for the liner notes of this series. A press release notes, "Françoise Hardy, with her brunette hair and alluring bangs, will forever personify a particularly French brand of cool. She was one of the few girls to write her own songs, and she did so from a place of depth and subtlety. Though she was a muse to the likes of Bob Dylan and Mick Jagger, Hardy remained reticent of fame, preferring privacy and modesty. She was a pop singer with the heart of a chanteuse, a singer-songwriter in an age before such a thing was known, and a style icon incredulous of others' admiration of her."
The albums original tracklists have been preserved. Hear a few of the songs below, and pre-order the albums here.
The albums will land on CD on October 16, with vinyl following on January 29. These French-language LPs originally arrived on a yearly basis between 1962 and 1966. They didn't have titles, but they became colloquially known by the names of their most successful song. The albums are: 1962's Tous les garçons et les filles, 1963's Le Premier Bonheur du jour, 1964's Mon amie la rose, 1965's L'Amitie and 1966's La Maison où j'ai grandi. Interestingly, Mon amie la rose features Jimmy Page in his pre-Led Zeppelin days as a session musician.
While Hardy hasn't be involved with most reissues of her music, she granted an exclusive new interview for the liner notes of this series. A press release notes, "Françoise Hardy, with her brunette hair and alluring bangs, will forever personify a particularly French brand of cool. She was one of the few girls to write her own songs, and she did so from a place of depth and subtlety. Though she was a muse to the likes of Bob Dylan and Mick Jagger, Hardy remained reticent of fame, preferring privacy and modesty. She was a pop singer with the heart of a chanteuse, a singer-songwriter in an age before such a thing was known, and a style icon incredulous of others' admiration of her."
The albums original tracklists have been preserved. Hear a few of the songs below, and pre-order the albums here.