Françoise Hardy: Françoise Hardy (gatefold) [DOL]

Why you'll love it

This edition comes in a gatefold jacket on 180g vinyl. The album launched Hardy's career, and "Tous les garçons et les filles" became an instant hit and her signature song.

This edition

• Gatefold jacket
• 180g vinyl

About the album

Paris in 1962 was full of young singers covering American rock and roll in French. Françoise Hardy, a teenager from the 9th arrondissement, did something quieter: she wrote her own songs, sang them softly, and became an icon almost overnight.

Her debut on Disques Vogue is built around "Tous les garçons et les filles," a gentle, melancholy song about watching couples stroll by while you're on your own, and it found immediate success. Around it sit more of her own wistful ballads and breezy yé-yé numbers, sung in that cool, intimate voice that would make her a muse for Yves Saint Laurent, Paco Rabanne and photographer Jean-Marie Périer. The following year she represented Monaco at Eurovision. She later recorded in London and sang in English, Italian and German too, but this French-language debut is where the legend starts.

She went on to record more than 30 studio albums, working with Serge Gainsbourg, Michel Berger and Gabriel Yared, and her style still turns up in fashion shoots every season. It all started here, with a girl, a guitar and an air of mild disappointment that nobody has ever worn better.

Also at Kops: more Françoise Hardy on vinyl · browse World

Listen

On DOL, a reissue of the 1962 album.