#frenchpop — Public Fediverse posts

SpaceAce Sunday | France Gall – Baby Pop (1966, France)

It’s been an entire year since we last looked at an album submitted by our dearly departed friend SpaceAce aka J, via our in memoriam ‘SpaceAce Sunday‘ series. And as that previous spotlight marked 1 year of him being gone, that somehow, inexplicably, means today it has now been 2 whole years since he left us.[1] What is time.

In memory of J, let’s listen together to number 1053 on The List. This is the fifth album from Isabelle Geneviève Marie Anne Gall aka France Gall, and gives us another glimpse of France’s yé-yé movement. Gall would become a key figure in French pop, and had already attained worldwide fame at the age of 17 when she won the 1965 Eurovision Song Contest with what would be the title track of her fourth album, Poupée de cire, poupée de son (“Wax doll, rag doll”; 1965), a song written for her by Serge Gainsbourg. Released the following year (i.e., almost exactly 60 years ago), Baby Pop compiles three EPs (Attends ou va-t’en [1965], L’Amérique [1965], and Baby pop [1966]) and features three more songs (including the title track) written by Gainsbourg as well as a handful by Gall’s father, Roger Gall.[2]

Gall would go on to release 10 more studio albums, the last released in 1996. J had a handful of France Gall albums in his vinyl collection including her psychedelic album released a couple years after Baby Pop, 1968, so that’s where I’m headed next. Thanks as always for sharing your musical knowledge with us, J.

Miss you, friend.

• YT playlist: France Gall – Baby Pop
  • Note the playlist is a remastered version with 2 additional songs at the end. (If anyone has a better streaming link, please let me know!)
• Discogs: France Gall – Baby Pop

1. For those of you who didn’t have the pleasure of knowing J, here is the first SpaceAce Sunday post for some context: 1001otheralbums.com/2024/07/28/spaceace-sunday-pussy-galore-live-in-the-red-1998-us/. As mentioned in that post, J had also contributed some great posts to our friend Puffer’s Digital LoFi blog, the last being just a few days before he left us: digitallofi.com/blog/2024/07-july/canada-day-a-vinyl-roundup. ↩︎
2. Roger Gall also wrote songs for other artists including another on The List, Charles Aznavour. ↩︎