Yé-Yé Girls of '60s French Pop

Y -Y is a delightful style of pop music featuring young female singers that influenced France and many other countries, as says Susan Sontag, with its particular "camp" style throughout the 1960s.

Y -Y pop had secondary explosions in the 1970s and 1990s in Japan and Europe through the likes of Lio (who provides this book's foreword), and in the United States through singers like April March, whose Y -Y number "Chick Habit" was heard in the Quentin Tarantino film Death Proof.

Interest in Y -Y revived again recently during the fifth season of the mega-popular television series Mad Men, when Don Draper's young, sexy wife sang the Y -Y number "Zou Bisou Bisou," originally made famous in the 1960s by blonde actress Gillian Hills.

The most famous Y -Y practitioners include the glamorous Sylvie Vartan (married to rock star Johnny Hallyday), French lolita France Gall, beautiful actresses Brigitte Bardot and Chantal Goya, and the statuesque Fran oise Hardy.

This collection by French pop music expert Jean-Emmanuel Deluxe includes many interviews with the original singers and producers, visual excerpts of record covers, both 45s and LPs, and remarkable excerpts from a children's fan diary of the period.

Y -Y means "Yeah Yeah" and many music lovers are ready for an immersion in this beloved but little-known genre.

"This lavishly illustrated compendium is like a passport to another time and place...a window into an era in which one could switch on the TV & see Bridget Bardot singing about Harley Davidson motorcycles while wearing thigh-high boots and a black leather mini-skirt. This book may well be the Bible of Y -Y ."

--Boyd Rice

Author: Jean-Emmanuel Deluxe
Publisher: Feral House
Published: 12/10/2013
Pages: 256
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.65lbs
Size: 8.20h x 8.00w x 0.80d
ISBN: 9781936239719


Review Citation(s):
Library Journal 02/01/2014 pg. 77

About the Author
Jean-Emmanuel Deluxe is a pop culture specialist, activist, writer and performer. He's written for several US, UK & Aussie magazines (Roctober, Shindig, Outre !) along with several publication from his homeland (Rock n Folk, Technikart, Standard & Playboy). He's written several books including, ''Cinepop'' (the ultimate & subjective pop film guide), ''La Confiserie Magique'' (on US & european sunshine & bubblegum pop) & ''JX Williams Les Dossiers Interdits." He runs the label Martyrs of Pop which featured April March who recorded with Bertrand Burgalat and Brian Wilson and was included in Tarantino's Deathproof soundtrack.
Lio took her stage name from pages of Jean-Claude Forest's comic serie, Barbarella. Just a few years later Jean-Claude Forest himself told Lio she was the incarnation of all the dream womens he drew. Lio is a pop icon that has fans as diverse as Debbie Harry, Lux Interior, The Sparks and Phil Oakey. To this very day she still draw crowds of thousands wherever she performs.