Sad news. That most beautiful and uber-cool of chanteuses Mlle Françoise Hardy has ascended the glittering stairway to Fabulon, Gauloise in hand...
A core performer in the so-called yé-yé craze in early 1960s France, her cultural impact was such that Bob Dylan became obsessed, sending love letters, and wrote a poem about her, and Mick Jagger said that she was his "ideal woman".
Over her long career she released almost 30 LPs (the most recent in 2018), modelled for Yves Saint Laurent and Paco Rabanne, represented Monaco at the Eurovision Song Contest, and worked with a diverse range of arists including Serge Gainsburg, Jane Birkin, Air [on the b-side of their smash Sexy Boy], Michel Berger, Iggy Pop and Blur. Remarkable.
Here is a selection of her songs, by way of a tribute:
[as covered by Natacha Atlas]... and finally, a classic - made famous decades later by Jimmy Somerville:
RIP, Françoise Madeleine Hardy (17th January 1944 – 11th June 2024)
I saw this first thing this morning. I adored her. Our loss is Fabulon's gain. Must be a hell of a party up there by now.
ReplyDeleteAs we lose greats like Mlle Hardy, the world's a shabbier and duller place. Jx
DeleteI thought David Bowie was Mick Jagger's ideal woman.
ReplyDeleteHe was prettier than Bianca. Jx
DeleteI was reading about her in The Guardian last night and admiring her classic French style. Amazing that everything she wore wouldn't look out of place in 2024.
ReplyDeleteSx
I saw it too, and it's more-or-less true - look at any recent photo-shoot of, say, Sienna Miller, and you could put 1960s Francoise next to her and she'd fit in straight away. Jx
Deletetrès, très cool.
ReplyDeleteLove her voice and the feelings and emotions she was able to evoke.
Another sad loss
There was nobody quite like her. Many tried, but never quite had "it"... Jx
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