Plus Belles Chansons

One of French pop's most poetic songwriters, Georges Brassens was also a highly acclaimed and much-beloved performer in his own right. Not only a brilliant manipulator of language and a feted poet in his own right, Brassens was also renowned for his subversive streak, satirizing religion, class, social conformity, and moral hypocrisy with a wicked glee. Yet beneath that surface was a compassionate concern for his fellow man, particularly the disadvantaged and desperate. His personal politics were forged during the Nazi occupation, and while his views on freedom bordered on anarchism, his songs expressed those convictions more subtly than those of his contemporary, Léo Ferré.

Although not the owner of conventional high-level vocal skills, Bardot invested her frivolous songs with a contagious sense of playful fun, and a refusal to take the music or herself too seriously. Certainly some of the tunes – and their breathy delivery – capitalize on her iconic sex kitten persona. But the guileless joy she projects is reminiscent of some of the early work by France Gall (one of the finest '60s French pop singers), though Bardot's voice is less girlish and more adult in tone.

Michèle Torr is celebrating her 60 years of her career, the opportunity to rediscover the 50 most beautiful songs of this popular artist who knew how to conquer the hearts of the French.

The music of French folk troubadour Hugues Aufray existed in stark opposition to the prevailing yé-yé sound that dominated pop charts in the mid-'60s. A disciple of Bob Dylan who regularly adapted his hero's songs into French, Aufray nevertheless proved a popular favorite whose own compositions, most notably "Santiano" and "Celine," quickly entered the mainstream vernacular.