Francoise Hardy - Tous Les Garcons Et Le... (2025) (Vinyl)

Francoise Hardy enjoyed a strict upbringing from her mother. She remembers being "very, very shy". Records and Radio Luxembourg provided both escape and inspiration. She loved the French chanson of Edith Piaf and Charles Aznavour, but also the rock´n´roll of the Everly Brothers.

Instead of studying political science at the Sorbonne as planned, she pursued a career as a singer, auditioned for a few labels and ended up with Johnny Hallyday´s "Disques Voque", who wanted to market Francoise as a rocker, which is clear from the first single "Oh Oh Chéri".

However, Francoise had other plans and wanted to record her own songs in French. The tremendous success of her own track "Tous Les Garçons Et Les Filles" proved her right. Dylan wrote a poem about her, she went out to dinner with the Stones and the Beatles and insisted on creative control over her work. Hardy stood out as an introspective outsider, part pop singer, part chanteuse. To this day, she is associated with an utterly French cool.