For no other reason than I rather like her, today I am in the mood for one of France's most popular chanteuses of the "yé-yé" style of the early 1960s. This style of music (described by Susan Sontag as "an example of an entire genre being annexed by the camp sensibility") became a symbol of a resurgent chic Paris, and many girl singers emerged at the time to varying degrees of subsequent success - Sylvie Vartan, Françoise Hardy, Nicole Paquin, Sheila (of "B Devotion" fame) - but the eternally coquettish France Gall seems to most epitomise the era.
With songs written for her by such luminaries as Serge Gainsbourg, including the 1965 Eurovision-winner Poupée de cire, poupée de son, she became a national treasure to the French, and despite drug problems and the death of her husband and producer Michel Berger, is still massively popular today. She lives in semi-retirement in Paris, but a documentary about her life broadcast in 2001 received nine million viewers!
Here's the lady herself...
In 1983, Mademoiselle Gall made a brief reappearance in the charts on this side of the pond with her sultry tribute to the legendary Ella Fitzgerald. I love this...
France Gall
France Gall biography on RFI
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