| Yé-yé | |
|---|---|
| Stylistic origins | R&B - Rock and roll - Beat music - Chanson - Jazz - Girl group - Traditional pop |
| Cultural origins | Late 1950s, France, Portugal and Spain |
| Typical instruments | Vocals - Electric guitar - Bass guitar - Drums - Keyboards - String section |
| Mainstream popularity | France, Spain, Quebec, and Japan. Especially amongst pre-teens and teenagers from the early 1960s onward |
| Derivative forms | indie pop, Shibuya-kei |
| Other topics | |
| Eurovision song contest | |
Yé-yé (French pronunciation: [jeje]) was a style of pop music that emerged from France, Québec and Spain in the early 1960s. The term "yé-yé" derived from "yeah! yeah!"[1] The style expanded worldwide, due to the success of figures such as the French singer-songwriter Serge Gainsbourg.[2]
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The yé-yé movement had its origins in the radio programme Salut les copains, created by Lucien Morisse and hosted by Daniel Filipacchi, which was first aired in December 1959. In fact the phrase "Salut les copains" dates back to the title of a 1957 song by Gilbert Bécaud and Pierre Delanoë, who had little regard for the yé-yé music the radio show typically featured. The program became an immediate success and one of its sections ("le chouchou de la semaine" / "this week's sweetheart") turned to be the starting point for most yé-yé singers. Any song that was presented as a chouchou went straight to the top places in the charts. The Salut les copains phenomenon continued with the magazine of the same name which was first published in 1962 in France, with German, Spanish and Italian editions following shortly afterward.
Yé-yé music was a mostly European phenomenon and usually featured young female singers. France Gall, for example, was only 16 when she released her first album, 17 when she won the Eurovision song contest (for Luxembourg). The yé-yé songs had innocent themes such as Françoise Hardy's "Tous les garçons et les filles" ("All the guys and girls my age know how it feels to be happy, but I am lonely. When will I know how it feels to have someone?").
The singers were also sexy in a deliberately naïve way. Gainsbourg called France Gall the French Lolita and, wanting to check to what extent her innocence was real, composed for her the song "Les sucettes" ("Lollipops"): "Annie loves lollipops, aniseed lollipops, when the sweet liquid runs down Annie's throat, she is in paradise."
Among the yé-yé girls, Sylvie Vartan played the glamorous one. She married rock star Johnny Hallyday in 1965 and toured in America and Asia. But she stayed always a yé-yé, and as late as in 1968 she recorded the song "Jolie poupée" about a girl who regrets having abandoned her doll after growing up.
Sheila was the most popular yé-yé girl in France with a lot of hits during the 60's and 70's.
In 1967, teen yé-yé singer Jacqueline Taïeb won the Best Newcomer award in Cannes at the Midem awards for her contribution of the hit single "7 heures du matin."
Although originating in France, the yé-yé movement extended over Western Europe. Italian Mina became the country's first female rock and roll singer in 1959.[3] In the following few years, she inclined to the middle-of-the-road girl pop. After her scandalous relationship and pregnancy with a married actor in 1963, she developed her image into a grownup 'bad girl'.[4] An example of her style were the lyrics of the song "Ta-ra-ta-ta": "The way you smoke, you are irresistible to me, you look like a real man".[5]
By contrast, her compatriot Rita Pavone cast the image of a typical teeny yé-yé girl. For example, the lyrics of her 1964 hit "Cuore" complained how love made the protagonist suffer. In Spain, yé-yé music was at first considered to be against Catholicism. However, this didn't stop the yé-yé culture from spreading, although a bit later than in the rest of Europe; in 1968 Spanish yé-yé girl Massiel won the Eurovision song contest with "La, la, la". Subsequently, she failed to maintain her success, and sweet, naïve-looking singer Karina enjoyed success as the Spanish yé-yé queen with her hits "En un mundo nuevo y feliz" and "El baúl de los recuerdos".
Yé-yé grew very popular in Japan and yé-yé music is in the origins of Shibuya-kei and Japanese idol music. There is a Japanese version of the 1965 Eurovision-winning song "Poupée de cire, poupée de son" composed by Serge Gainsbourg and performed by France Gall. Japan has released a DVD copy of Cherchez l'idole featuring Johnny Halliday, a notable yé-yé singer. One of the more popular yé-yé vocal groups were Les Surfs who appear in Cherchez l'idole performing their hit song "Ca n'a pas d'importance."
While the yé-yé movement was led by female singers, it was not an exclusively female movement. The yé-yé masterminds (such as Serge Gainsbourg, who wrote several hits for France Gall, Petula Clark, and Brigitte Bardot, but was considerably older and came from a jazz background) were distinct from the actual yé-yé singers. These were harmless, romantic boys singing mostly ballads and love songs. Michel Polnareff, for example, played the tormented, hopeless lover in songs such as "Love Me Please Love Me", while Jacques Dutronc claimed to have seduced Father Christmas's daughter in "La Fille du Père Noël". One of the more popular male yé-yé singers was Claude François, notable for songs such as "Belles, Belles, Belles," a French-language adaptation of Eddie Hodges' "(Girls, Girls, Girls) Made to Love".
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