Swinging Mademoiselles: Groovy French Sounds From the 60s – French female pop singers from the '60s. Most songs have a full orchestra with strings and horns. Fun, cute, and bouncy tends to prevail while still being cool, sexy, and very hip. Other songs add more rock, garage, and psych sounds (track 16 is killer). All songs are in french too so that just adds to the coolness factor. These are all really fun and highly recommended and a great way to check out the sounds of “les années yé-yé” as they were called. FCC clean as far as I could tell.
My Picks: 1, 6, 7, 13, 16, 18
Katie P. 10/6/05

1)Solid midtempo walk. Female vocals are mostly spoken and sung a little. Psych-rock with some pop sensibilities. Cool and hip.
2)Faster midtempo with a bit of a bounce. Full band with horns and everything. Female vocals are a little processed. Cute pop-rock with totally silly lyrics and goofy background sounds.
3)Uptempo and fun. Layered female vocals. Cute organ and horns too. Bouncy and quite catchy.
4)Fast midtempo with a fuzzed out guitar sound that is a little odd with the cute staccato of the other instruments. At the chorus it breaks wide open with full horn section. Fun cute pop that is super happy!
5)Midtempo with a lowdown and mysterious feel. Female vocals sung but sometimes spoken. Simple guitar with some piano or organ in the background. And lets not forget the triangle.
6)Solid midtempo with a laid-back cool attitude. Vocals are spoken/sung. Ooo, horns kick in full gear and it gets tough and then drops back into sexy coolness.
7)Uptempo with a little attitude. Fun rock/garage feel. Lowdown.
8)Uptempo and fun. Cute and bouncy. Funny and cute keyboards on this (maybe harpsichord). Some horns too.
9)Uptempo with atonal whistle at the beginning. Drops down a bit into cute fun orchestral pop music with the occasional garagey guitar.
10)Midtempo with horns and full orchestra kicking it off. Falls into tough yet cool bouncy garage rock that flips back to the orchestral piece here and there.
11)Cute simple almost indie-pop with super cute vocals. She has a bit of a lisp. But at times it has elements of country and then orchestration too. And finally handclaps.
12)Piano with some full orchestration. Solid midtempo. Sung/spoken vocals.
13)Groovy tough uptempo number with piano and some orchestration. Vocals are sung/spoken.
14)Midtempo swinging number. Low and cool. Horns, guitars, and full band. Builds during the chorus. A bit sad.
15)Full on band with a bouncy fast midtempo feel. Petula Clark's standard “Call Me.” Fun with some nice sax work.
16)Wow! Lowdown tough garage guitar. Live audience is going nuts! Tough female vocals that are insanely fast at times. Damn!
17)Piano goes into a nice midtempo bounce. Fun female vocals are spoken/sung. Nice short piano solo in there.
18)Jazzy uptempo number. Cute female vocals. Very cool and yet it has a bit of a bounce and feels quite poppy.