1995
Greatest Recordings


CD   #0210
Vogue 7432 1 203912
France 		Songlist

All Over The World (Dans le monde entier)
Ce petit coeur
Comme
Il est des choses
Je ne suis la pour personne
L'amitie
La maison ou j'ai grandi
Le premier bonheur du jour
Le temps de l'amour
Mon amie la rose
Tous les garcons et les filles
Voila


Cover text :
Paris never really changes, only its people do, each within their time. And it is in the moment of this realisation that Paris becomes a friend, because from it arises a feeling - one that denotes a particular kind of sensitivity and gentleness. Though it is a feeling of almost Parisian in nature, its sentiment is one that seems to pervade most of the art in France, particularly that of its music. Among contemporary artists in France today, Francoise Hardy is still probably the one best noted for this quality.

Since the spring of 1960 when she first began auditioning for record companies and was signed by Vogue Records, her name has become a byword in the French language. Within two weeks of its release, her first record had become the biggest hit of the year and with it she emerged as France's most talented new artist. Though her rise in the music industry was meteoric, it was not due merely to the praise that is usually bestowed upon an artist by an adoring public. Another important factor was involved.

Francoise appeared in Paris at a time when the city was still very much under the spell of Sylvie Vartan and the ensuing phenomenon that was politely known as the Ye-Ye girls. Sylvie and her singer husband Johnny Hallyday dominated the music scene, for they carried with them all the spangle and glitter of that goes along with the more sensational movements in popular music. Sylvie and Johnny were France's answer to rock and roll and the powerful pop culture that was emerging in the United States. They were good but the French public is a fickle one. When Francoise Hardy's first record was released, people responded to it immediately. There was something in her music that spangle and glitter could not provide: a simplicity, a warmth and a tendresse that drew people to her, rather than merely attracting them. Her songs were dreams laced with hopes and disappointments, her music a reflection of what was happening around her as well as within. Francoise Hardy became an artist who represented the innocence of youth. To those who heard her, her presence was a reprieve, a gift of something that had long been missed and was much needed.

If her songs are melancholy at times, it is a melancholy without pretension, for much of her beauty lies in her sadness and her honesty in her innocence.