Book trailer of the day: ‘The Ye-Ye Girls of ‘60s French Pop’
If you weren’t in France in the 1960s and weren’t paying attention to American alternative music in the 1990s, you have Megan Draper’s rendition of “Zou Bisou Bisou” to thank for your introduction to Yé-Yé.
In Season 5 of “Mad Men,” Megan (Jessica Paré) sang “Zou Bisou Bisou” to her husband, Don Draper, on his birthday. The original was made famous, way back when, by French actress Gillian Hills.
Actresses, models and other alluring girls in short dresses were whom you’d find singing Yé-Yé, a style of French pop that was sexy and sweet, cute and camp. Think Brigitte Bardot and Francoise Hardy, Sylvie Vartan and France Gall.
They’re all in the book “The Yé-Yé Girls of ‘60s French Pop,” which is coming in December. As it’s being published by Feral House, it promises to be a slightly untraditional music history. Sure, it will include the expected obsessive details about singers, musicians and record producers, provided by French music writer Jean-Emmanuel Deluxe. And it will have a good number of the record covers, both LPs and 45s, which helped sell the genre. On the unusual side, it will include, the publisher promises, “remarkable excerpts from a children’s fan diary of the period.”
If the book trailer whets your appetite for the music, Feral House has posted an hourlong mix on Soundcloud.
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