The Best Of Françoise Hardy

I'd only heard a few of Françoise Hardy's songs before stumbling upon this 1970 double-LP 'Best Of'' in my local charity shop. This was back when albums there were appealingly priced at £1 each (or three for £2) so it was inexpensive. Not that it would have been too costly when it was new either, having been issued on the Marble Arch label, whose releases were apparently priced at less than half the going rate of equivalents put out on their parent label Pye Records.

The album comprises twenty tracks, where English songs alternate with French ones throughout. Her breakthrough single and most famous song 'Tous Les Garçons Et Les Filles' is the closing number, while the lacklustre English-language version of the same ('Find Me a Boy') is, somewhat superfluously, the final track on side 3. I think it's the only instance of the same melody being included twice. While I could have done without the latter, disc two also contains my favourite tracks on the album, with 'La Maison Ou J'Ai Grandi' my top pick out of the French songs and 'Only You Can Do It' taking the prize out of the English ones.

For a budget production, the sleeve is admirably well-designed. The sleeve-notes aren't up to much, however, with their uncredited writer, after praising Hardy's gift for interpreting others' songs (meanwhile neglecting to note that most of the songs on the album were written or co-written by her) unable to stop himself adding "That in itself is a pretty rare talent but because Françoise Hardy is also a very attractive girl, the audible results are aided by visual ones."

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