Francoise Hardy

The English-speaking world may only remember Françoise Hardy as a '60s icon, but in France, she is rightly considered a major artist. The truth is that in the course of a 48-year career, Hardy has released 26 albums, almost invariably excellent. La Pluie Sans Parapluine is her first collection of original material in six years, a period the famously reclusive Hardy spent in putting together a duets album, and writing a very successful autobiography.

French teen idol and pop icon Françoise Hardy returned to record shelves in 2006 with Parenthèses, a collection of 12 duets. Longtime collaborators like Henri Salvador and husband Jacques Dutronc join some up-and-comers to offer up a slew of some of Hardy's favorites.

Sung (except for one track) in English, this 1972 album (originally titled just Françoise Hardy) was reissued on CD by Virgin France in 2000 under the title If You Listen, and issued in some foreign territories under yet different titles in the 1970s. However it was titled, it was a good, tasteful, and subdued set of folk-rock- and singer/songwriter-influenced covers (though the one French song, "Brulure," was the sole original Hardy composition).

Personne d'Autre est le vingt-huitième album, édité en France de la chanteuse Françoise Hardy. L’édition originale est parue le 6 avril 2018.

Most of the innumerable Françoise Hardy compilations focus on just one phase of her career (most often, though not always, the early to mid-'60s). En Resume is an unusual exception to the trend, in that its 21 tracks do indeed cover the first three decades of her discography, from her debut 1962 hit, "Tous les Garcons et les Filles," to 1995's "Revenge of the Flowers" (which she co-wrote with Malcolm McLaren and others).

Françoise Hardy is a pop and fashion icon celebrated as a French national treasure. With her signature breathy alto, she was one of the earliest and most definitive French participants in the yé-yé movement (a style of pop music that initially emerged from Italy, Switzerland, Spain, and Portugal before spreading to France in the early 1960s). She is one of only a few female vocalists who could or would write and perform her own material. She offered a startling contrast to the boy's club of French pop in the early '60s, paving the way for literally thousands of women all over the globe.