THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
777) Maryrené — “Je T’appelais Monsieur“
Bouncy, infectious ’66 yé-yé by a quite obscure artist. What is yé-yé? Matt Collar explains:
Yé-yé pop showcased young, cherubic-voiced female singers framed against dance-ready beats and rock & roll hooks in songs often riddled with thinly veiled sexual innuendo. It was bubblegum pop meets softcore porn and it was massively successful in Europe from the late ’50s through the ’60s.
https://www.allmusic.com/album/release/sensationnel%21-y%C3%A9-y%C3%A9-bonbons-1965-1968-mr0004366480
Lest you snicker at my love of yé-yé (see #36, 39, 206, 328, 364, 456, 504, 533), let me throw at ya Véronique Hyland’s article “Why Yé-Yé Girl Style Was Secretly Feminist”:
The flowering of yé-yé, or female-fronted ‘60s French pop, often gets dismissed as fluffy, likely due to its lyrical reliance on lollipops, bubble gum, and dolls. But it’s a more sophisticated style than you might think. Yé-yé draws on the longstanding tradition of French chanson, while adding a sly, flirtatious element. And while they were far from rebels, the singers’ insouciance was, in its way, revolutionary. Françoise Hardy’s “Je changerais d’avis” (“I changed my opinion”) asserts “life is not only about one boy/one face to love,” while [Brigitte] Bardot . . . sings on the saccharine “Bubble Gum” that love has the lifespan of a pack of — well, you know. . . And in “Baby Pop”, France Gall sang to an imagined young girl, “You’ll have to get married/perhaps even against your will/On your wedding night/It’ll be too late to regret it.” She went on to encourage her to dance and sing while she still had the freedom to. . . . [T]he yé-yé set thumbed their noses at monogamy and commitment. [T]heir free-spirited style — schoolgirl minidresses, slick go-go boots, mod eyeliner — fused elements of childhood with a very adult sensibility. . . . [and their] youthful energy helped create a new, freer female archetype. . . . The yé-yé . . . would epitomize a point in time when social mores were beginning to shift, and when it was clear that women’s roles were long overdue for some shaking up. And if that liberation came with a catchy snare beat, so be it.
https://www.thecut.com/2015/04/why-y-y-girl-style-was-secretly-feminist.html
And let me throw some Susan Sontag at ya:
[T]he essence of Camp is its love of the unnatural: of artifice and exaggeration. And Camp is esoteric — something of a private code, a badge of identity even, among small urban cliques. . . . Camp taste has an affinity for certain arts rather than others. Clothes, furniture, all the elements of visual décor, for instance, make up a large part of Camp. For Camp art is often decorative art, emphasizing texture, sensuous surface, and style at the expense of content. . . . Sometimes whole art forms become saturated with Camp. Classical ballet, opera, movies have seemed so for a long time. In the last two years, popular music (post rock-‘n’-roll, what the French call yé yé) has been annexed.
https://interglacial.com/~sburke/pub/prose/Susan_Sontag_-_Notes_on_Camp.html
Pay to Play! The Off the Charts Spotify Playlist! + Brace for the Obscure 60s Rock Merchandise
Please consider helping to support my website/blog by contributing $6 a month for access to the Off the Charts Spotify Playlist. Using a term familiar to denizens of Capitol Hill, you pay to play! (“relating to or denoting an unethical or illicit arrangement in which payment is made by those who want certain privileges or advantages in such arenas as business, politics, sports, and entertainment” — dictionary.com).
The playlist includes all the “greatest songs of the 1960’s that no one has ever heard” that are available on Spotify. The playlist will expand each time I feature an available song.
All new subscribers will receive a Brace for the Obscure 60s Rock magnet. New subscribers who sign up for a year will also receive a Brace for the Obscure 60s Rock t-shirt or baseball cap. See pictures on the Pay to Play page.
When subscribing, please send me an e-mail (GMFtma1@gmail.com) or a comment on this site letting me know an e-mail address/phone number/Facebook address, etc. to which I can send instructions on accessing the playlist and a physical address to which I can sent a magnet/t-shirt/baseball cap. If choosing a t-shirt, please let me know the gender and size you prefer.
Just click on the first blue block for a month to month subscription or the second blue block for a yearly subscription.
Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! / Off the Charts: 60s Rock Revelations 