Jacques Brel - Olympia 61 (1962)

From rateyourmusic (5/5):

"The songs are great, the arrangements perfect, the performances extraordinary. The set has such a terrific flow to it; he knows exactly when a change of mood is required, and almost seems to be telling some abstract story over the duration of the entire record to go with the specific ones in each song.

I realised it had become my favourite record when, almost without meaning to, I kept putting it on to hear the opening numbers (an excellent "Prénoms de Paris" going into a lung-stripping "Les bourgeois" which elicits stunned, even slightly frightened, applause after the first chorus) and found, without fail, that I could not turn it off until the end (when I would quite often put it back to the start and listen again). For a couple of weeks, I listened to it every day, most days more than once. I started to feel that the album was sending me insane, and I didn't care. This slip into the lunatic was confirmed when I heard the record leaking out of the iPod of somebody seated in front of me on the bus (this wasn't in Paris, it was in Rotherham). I took this as a sign from somebody's god that yes, this was it, this was the record. Maybe I should have taken it as a sign that I needed help. Hindsight etc.

Two years later, the fucking thing still makes me miss appointments."



Get it here.

Serge Gainsbourg - Histoire de Melody Nelson (1971)

From allmusic (4.5/5):

"You don't need to speak a word of French to understand Histoire de Melody Nelson — one needs only to look at the front cover (with its nearly pornographic portrait of a half-naked nymphet clutching a rag doll) or hear the lechery virtually dripping from Serge Gainsbourg's sleazily seductive voice to realize that this is the record your mother always warned you about, a masterpiece of perversion and corruption. A concept record exploring the story of — and Gainsbourg's lust for — the titular teen heroine, Histoire de Melody Nelson is arguably his most coherent and perfectly realized studio album, with the lush arrangements which characterize the majority of his work often mixed here with funky rhythm lines which underscore the musky allure of the music. Perhaps best described as a dirty old bastard's attempt to make his own R&B love-man's record along the lines of a Let's Get It On (itself still two years away from release), it's by turns fascinating and repellent, hilarious and grim, but never dull — which, in Gainsbourg's world, would be the ultimate (and quite possibly the only) sin."

Get it here.

Also:
Serge Gainsbourg - N°2 (1959)
Serge Gainsbourg - L'étonnant Serge Gainsbourg (1961)
Jane Birkin et Serge Gainsbourg (1969)
Serge Gainsbourg - L'Homme à Tête de Chou (1976)

Jane Birkin et Serge Gainsbourg (1969)

nlm1984's review on RYM (4.5/5):

"As I was playing this album just last night, my mother asked me the name of the title track, the first cut. I told her "Je t'aime... Moi, Non Plus" or, loosely translated, "I Love You... Nor Do I." She gave me the crook eye and asked, "Wasn't that a banned song?!" "Why yes, it was," I replied. That song raised the ire of The Vatican. Well, I must say that my mother surprised me. I had no clue she knew one Gainsbourg song.

Now, to the album itself. As the majority of this album was recorded a Londres, it carries an aire of its time. It's very charming!

The classic title track: Fantastic arrangement for being a C-F-G chord song. I, personally, love the organ and string arrangement. His version with Bridgitte Bardot is all the more better, as it's mix is re-structured with the orchestra in the fore. "Je vais et je viens/ entre te riens" I go and I come/ between your kidneys.

Speaking of organs, L'anamour or Non-love, features some of the best sounding Hammond B-3 organ ever recorded.

The guitar on this album is nice an clean, manipulated only on occasion by a stray wah-wah peddle. This effect is found in the precious Orang-Outan. J'aime ma poupeé orang-outan! En anglais, I love my toy monkey. This monkey is featured on the album cover of L'histoire de Melody Nelson. This monkey is also one of the sources of Jane's tears in the song Je Suis Venu Te Dire Que Je M'en Vais from 1973.

Soixent-neuf, Anneé Erotique is another stand-out. '69 the erotic year. Serge always loved his play of words. Just use your imagination as to what that means. This cut also features a delightful arrangement; bass-driven, orchestra, vibes, peddled-out piano.

Les Sucettes, features a very English arrangement. Written for France Gall in '65, Serge reclaims this suggestive work. Great!

This album is a masterpiece. This is an album that should be owned by everyone, yet thankfully isn't. If you can appreciate this, consider yourself lucky."

Get it here.

Also:
Serge Gainsbourg - N°2 (1959)
Serge Gainsbourg - L'étonnant Serge Gainsbourg (1961)
Serge Gainsbourg - L'Homme à Tête de Chou (1976)

Françoise Hardy - Comment te dire adieu (1968)

dorotea's review on Rate Your Music (4.5/5):

"Twelve songs, all versions except two composed by herself. ¡But what versions!, wonderful renditions of Phil Och's "There but for fortune", Leonard Cohen's "Suzanne", Jobim's "Sabia"and three hits of pop like the title track "It Hurts to Say Goodbye", "Lonesome town" and "The Way of Love", all of course translated to French language. Still, the best is in home: Gainsbourg's "L'anamour" and the poem of Louis Aragon with music of Georges Brassens "Il n'y a pas d'amour hereux".

Following an extended fashion of late 60's between French artists of recording in London, city of studios and new techniques, the delicious arrangements of Arthur Greenslade, Jean Pierre Sabar, Mike Vickers and John Cameron and the unique voice of Françoise, make of this one of her best albums. Great cover of Jean Paul Goude."

Get it here. And, if anyone can find me Message personnel, her album from 1973, I'd appreciate it (as would the readers of this blog; they seem to love them some Françoise Hardy). Word.

Also:
Françoise Hardy - The Yeh-Yeh Girl From Paris (1965)
Françoise Hardy - Ma jeunesse fout le camp... (1967)
Françoise Hardy - La question (1971)

Serge Gainsbourg - L'étonnant Serge Gainsbourg (1961)

From allmusic (4/5):

"As early as 1961, Serge Gainsbourg was one of the most extraordinary artists of the French pop scene, and during the first part of the '60s the crooner produced a series of outrageously brilliant albums with producer/arranger Alain Goraguer. One of his most intoxicating amalgams of jazz and pop styles, L'Etonnant Serge Gainsbourg comes highly recommended to fans of '60s French pop. An utterly essential early document of Serge Gainsbourg while he was still a mildly respectable man -- but that's not say there aren't hints of his notorious decadence in this early work."

Get it here.

Also:
Serge Gainsbourg - N°2 (1959)
Serge Gainsbourg - L'Homme à Tête de Chou (1976)

Françoise Hardy - The Yeh-Yeh Girl from Paris (1965)

From allmusic (4/5):

"From the Bardot-like cover shot of a windswept and gorgeous Françoise Hardy to the oddly chipper title, this 1965 U.S. debut (originally released on the proto-world music label Four Corners) is clearly pitched at the adventurous edge of the U.S. pop market, pitching Hardy as the Gallic Petula Clark. (Clark was, unbeknownst to the U.S. market at the time, making terrific French-language pop records herself at the time.) Complicating this, of course, is the fact that Hardy's music, for all its catchiness, is stripped down to its barest essentials -- acoustic and electric guitar, bass, minimalist drums, very little else -- and Hardy herself sings her (mostly self-penned) lyrics in an attractive but chilly drop-dead monotone that's far removed from the perkiness of almost every other female singer (minus Nico and Mary Weiss of the Shangri-Las) of the '60s. Even the perkier tunes, like the enormous French hit single "Tous les Garcons et les Filles," have a measured, restrained quality. The Yeh-Yeh Girl From Paris is an outstanding record, but it's the '60s pop equivalent of Shaker furniture: free of ornamentation and exquisitely simple."

Get it here.

Also:
Françoise Hardy - Ma jeunesse fout le camp...(1967)
Françoise Hardy - La question (1971)

Françoise Hardy - Ma jeunesse fout le camp... (1967)

Happy Bastille Day.

Simon Riley's review over on Amazon.com (5/5):

"This album is a must-have for any fan of 60s French pop. Avoiding some of the disingenuous disposability of her earlier "yeh-yeh" era songs and the occasionally maudlin element of her later work, "Ma Jeunesse" is an impressively even album. It captures that wonderful time in French music where the technical strengths of the chanson tradition were able to blend with the best influences in mainstream pop in the UK and US to produce something uniquely of its time. Although many of the songs are tinged with a sense of loss, the sobriety is lifted throughout by the strong melodies, written by Hardy herself and a rich variety of collaborators. The highlight is "Des Ronds Dans L'Eau" from the film "Vivre Pour Vivre", a cascading and haunting tune, beautifully sung by Hardy. Like all great albums, "Ma Jeunesse" never rests on its laurels and continues to twist and turn all the way through to to the wistful "C'etait Charmant". I would recommend it both to aficionados and starters in French pop. Sad though that the genre's period of true greatness was so shortlived."

moondoggieferg's review on RYM (4/5):

"Do you like beautiful, sad ballads? Move mountains to hear the title track of this LP, then.

Post the shoddily produced earlier 60s stuff - the stuff where you really need to be a fan - Francoise Hardy was a real star, one of the definitive voices of the late 60s.

One of her 3 or 4 best, I reckon."

Get it here.

Françoise Hardy - La question (1971)

From allmusic (4.5/5):

"Throughout her career, most of Françoise Hardy's arrangements have tended toward the lush, though in a good way. La Question is lush too, but it's one of her most sparsely produced efforts, usually finding her voice accompanied by little more than an acoustic guitar, touches of bass, and very subtle orchestration. Much of the record's lights-low ambience could be attributed to Tuca (no last name given), who played guitar, co-arranged, and co-wrote most of the tunes (though Hardy did contribute to the composition of a few tracks). It may be her best post-'60s effort, songs like "Chanson d'O" and "Le Martien" featuring some of her most whispery, seductive vocals. As fireside romantic music goes, it beats the hell out of José Feliciano."

sizeprize's review on RYM (5/5):

"Francoise Hardy could have been slotted into the typical French chanteuse category, surviving on her looks and singing easy standards. But while sex appeal and songs written by others are her fare, she delivers on that more than others, and adds to it a sincere artists' sensibility that makes her the opposite of an ingenue, but rather a smart, sexy, arty, womanly force.

The first word of this album is a come-on: "Viens..." delivered with smoldering boudoir sexuality that sets the mood for the whole album. The songs are of longing, doomed romance, loving like it's the only thing on earth. Hardy's voice and personality carry these smartly written songs, but the mood is built by the wonderful orchestration that surrounds them, not layering over the directness of the voice but enhancing it.

This is an amazing record."

Get it here.

Serge Gainsbourg - L'Homme à Tête de Chou (1976)

From allmusic (4/5):

"Even tolerant music fans shudder inwardly at the mention of the concept album, a largely prog rock genre that spawned many of the greatest aesthetic indiscretions of the '70s. L'Homme à Tête de Chou (The Man with the Cabbage Head) is a concept album and shares some of prog's general characteristics, but it's unlike anything emanating from rock's beardy depths. In the spirit of his 1971 masterpiece Histoire de Melody Nelson, Gainsbourg sets this album's brief tale amid a widescreen musical canvas. Whereas Melody Nelson was provocative without being explicit, the gravel-voiced Gallic lecher goes X-rated here -- albeit without sacrificing his poetic élan. In this morbidly comic song cycle the narrator's muse is Marilou, a black shampoo girl: during their ill-fated fling, he descends into unhinged obsession, beats her to death with a fire extinguisher and ends up in a psychiatric hospital (convinced his head has turned into a cabbage). Although the title track retains something of Melody Nelson's cool Baroque pop gravitas, Chou doesn't replicate that earlier record's alternately brooding and soaring melodic grandeur. Instead, it draws on an adventurously varied palette, spanning rock, country, disco, jazz, reggae, and funk. In places, the shifting styles match the different images or situations that Gainsbourg presents, sometimes without concern for subtlety: "Marilou Reggae" finds Marilou grooving to Caribbean sounds, while tribal rhythms on "Transit à Marilou" heavy-handedly signify her exotic sexuality. The songs are most satisfying when the relationship between lyrics and music is less literal, more evocative -- especially "Lunatic Asylum," where tympani, didgeridoo-like drones, dramatic organ, and insistent percussion soundtrack the protagonist's insanity. Elsewhere, subject matter and sound are divorced completely, the cheery funk of "Ma Lou Marilou" contrasting with the narrator's murderous thoughts. L'Homme à Tête de Chou is an underrated Gainsbourg album. Notwithstanding some dubious synth coloring, it's his second-best '70s release, ranking among his finest recordings."

Get it here.

Also:
Serge Gainsbourg - No 2 (1959)

Serge Gainsbourg - N°2 (1959)

From allmusic (4/5):

"The late Serge Gainsbourg made a name for himself fairly early in his recording career with his combination of French cabaret music, bordello jazz, and drunken musique exotica. His second effort features Gainsbourg with a cigarette, appropriately seated at a worn desk littered with roses, a long-nosed 38 caliber placed squarely in front of him, and a quizzical, daring look on his puss that seems to say, "Can't figure it out? Of course!" Gainsbourg actually attempted singing in the early days, before his voice began to go and all he could do was whisper or rant his crazy poetry. Here he fronts the Alain Goraguer Orchestra on eight selections that are as typical of his oeuvre as Love on the Beat was nearly 30 years later. His topics are the seduction site of the jukebox on "Le Claquer de Doights" and a theme based on d'Alfred de Musset's "Night Doctor." There are also a couple of Latin-styled numbers in "Mambo Miam Miam" and "Indifferente," with a serious Stan Getz-aped sax solo in the middle eight (not to mention a crazy TV western theme as a cabaret song in "Jeunes Femmes et Vieux Messieurs"). This is truly the beginning of Gainsbourg's hepcat legend, and musically, for all the kitsch and gimmick, it comes across as totally sincere in its campy chariot. This is why we dig French pop, and this is why Gainsbourg holds sway with everyone from Nick Cave to Angie Stone."

If you're only familiar with Gainsbourg's Histoire de Melody Nelson, or if you've never heard of Serge Gainsbourg, make sure to pick this one up. If a lot of people download it, I'll upload more from his oeuvre.

Anyways, get it here.