Style of pop music
Ye-ye
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Stylistic origins
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Cultural origins
| Early 1960s,
Southern Europe
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Derivative forms
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- France
- Spain
- Portugal
- Italy
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Ye-ye
(
French:
[jeje]
ⓘ
) or
yeye
[1]
(
Spanish:
[??e??e]
) was a style of pop music that emerged in
Western
-
Southern Europe
in the early 1960s. The French term
ye-ye
was derived from the English "yeah! yeah!", popularized by British
beat music
bands such as
the Beatles
.
[2]
The style expanded worldwide as the result of the success of figures such as French singer-songwriters
Sylvie Vartan
,
Serge Gainsbourg
and
Francoise Hardy
.
[3]
Ye-ye was a particular form of
counterculture
that derived most of its inspiration from British and American
rock and roll
. Additional stylistic elements of
ye-ye
song composition include baroque, exotica, pop, jazz and the French
chanson
.
[4]
History
[
edit
]
The
ye-ye
movement had its origins in the radio program
Salut les copains
(loosely translated as "hello mates" or "hello pals"), created by Jean Frydman and hosted by
Daniel Filipacchi
and
Frank Tenot
,
[5]
which first aired in December 1959. The phrase "
Salut les copains
" dates back to the title of a 1957 song by
Gilbert Becaud
and
Pierre Delanoe
, who themselves had little regard for the ye-ye music that the radio show typically featured. The program became an immediate success, and one of its sections, "L
e chouchou de la semaine
" ("This Week's Sweetheart"), became the starting point for most
ye-ye
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 a
magazine of the same name
that was first published in 1962 in France, with German, Spanish, and Italian ("Ciao Amici") editions following shortly afterward.
[6]
"Radios were practicing a real hype, much more than today. We, the singers, were much, much less numerous than today ? and there were fewer radios. It was also the heyday of
Salut les copains
, and the press played an extremely important role, it could promote beginners. I remember being on the front page of
Paris Match
very quickly, without being very well known or doing anything special for that; this would no longer be possible nowadays. In fact, in the 1960s, we saw the advent of the mass media. At the same time, fashion had assumed a considerable importance, which it had never before had. Singers like me became emblems of fashion, in addition to
chanson
, which helped to maintain notoriety."
?
Francoise Hardy
,
Telerama
, 2012.
[7]
Francoise Hardy performed on
Mireille Hartuch
's
Petit Conservatoire
television show in February 1962 (a year before The Beatles recorded "
She Loves You
"), singing "
La fille avec toi
", which began with "Yeah yeah yeah yeah". After she finished, Hartuch remarked on the "ye ye" lyrics and asked her what they meant.
[8]
The term was popularised by
Edgar Morin
in a July 1963 article in
Le Monde
.
[9]
Ye-ye girls
[
edit
]
Ye-ye music was a mostly continental European phenomenon and usually featured young female singers.
France Gall
, for example, was only sixteen years of age when she released her first album and seventeen when she won the Eurovision Song Contest (for
Luxembourg
) singing
the prototype
bubblegum
song "
Poupee de cire, poupee de son
". Another later hit by Gall included "
Laisse tomber les filles
", a cover version of which by
April March
called "Chick Habit" appeared in
Quentin Tarantino
's 2007 film
Death Proof
.
Ye-ye songs had innocent themes such as that of
Francoise Hardy
's "
Tous les garcons 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?").
France had a large market for the consumption of French-language songs at the time. Unlike other European nations such as
West Germany
, the French were more willing to support artists from their own country, singing in their native tongue.
[10]
Some of the early French artists who were dabbling in
rock and roll
and similar genres, such as
Johnny Hallyday
, admit that they were creating an imitation of English-language rock music.
[11]
Ye-ye helped assimilate that music in a unique, French way, and with the popularity of
Salut les copains
, the public began to see stars such as France Gall emerge.
The singers were sexualized in a deliberately contrived naive manner. Composer and singer/songwriter
Serge Gainsbourg
once called Gall the French
Lolita
and, wanting to exploit her innocence,
[12]
composed for her the
double-entendre
song "
Les sucettes
" ("Lollipops"): "Annie loves lollipops, aniseed lollipops, when the sweet liquid runs down Annie's throat, she is in paradise." The lyrics of the song are blatantly phallic, and the music video essentially features a group of dancing penises.
[13]
[14]
Sylvie Vartan
married rock star
Johnny Hallyday
in 1965 and toured in America and Asia, but she remained a ye-ye at heart, and as late as 1968 she recorded the song "
Jolie poupee
" ("Pretty Doll"), about a girl who regrets having abandoned her doll after growing up.
Sheila
portrayed the image of a well-behaved young girl. Her first hit was "
L'ecole est finie
" ("School is over") in 1962.
In 1967, teen ye-ye singer
Jacqueline Taieb
won the Best Newcomer award in
Cannes
at the
Midem
awards for her hit single "7 heures du matin".
Other significant girl singers of the era include teen TV star
Christine Delaroche
,
Jocelyne
,
Zouzou
,
Evy
, Cosette (Dominique Cozette) and
Annie Philippe
. Some girl groups emerged, such as Les Parisiennes, influenced by acts like
the Shangri-Las
.
Although originating in France, the ye-ye movement extended over Western Europe. Italian singer
Mina
became her country's first female rock-and-roll singer in 1959.
[15]
In the following few years, she moved to
middle-of-the-road
girl pop. After her scandalous relationship and pregnancy with a married actor in 1963, Mina developed her image into that of a grown-up "bad girl".
[16]
An example of her style may be found in the lyrics of the song "Ta-ra-ta-ta": "The way you smoke, you are irresistible to me, you look like a real man."
[17]
By contrast, her compatriot
Rita Pavone
cast the image of a typical teenage ye-ye girl; for example, the lyrics of her 1964 hit "Cuore" complained how love made the protagonist suffer.
In Italy, the ye-ye wave ended around 1967, vanishing under the emergence of British blues rock, pop and psychedelia.
Parisian-born singer
Catherine Spaak
had a massive success in Italy with a style very close to that of Francoise Hardy.
Other significant Italian ye-ye girls include Mari Marabini, Carmen Villani, Anna Identici and the girl groups Le Amiche, Le Snobs and Sonia e le Sorelle.
British
singer
Sandie Shaw
recorded
Puppet on a String
in 1967 and won the
Eurovision Song Contest 1967
, the first for the United Kingdom.
[18]
In Spain, ye-ye music was at first considered to be incompatible with Catholicism, in then
Francoist Spain
. However, this did not stop the ye-ye culture from spreading, although a bit later than in the rest of Europe; in 1968 Spanish ye-ye girl
Massiel
won the Eurovision song contest with "
La, la, la
", while the sweet, naive-looking singer
Karina
enjoyed success as the Spanish ye-ye queen with her hits "
En un mundo nuevo
" and "El baul de los recuerdos".
In the 1965 film
Historias de la television
,
Concha Velasco
's character, who competes against a ye-ye girl, sings
La chica ye-ye
("The Ye-ye Girl").
The song became a hit, and Velasco is often remembered as, of course,
la chica yeye
.
Ye-ye grew very popular in Japan and formed the origins of
Shibuya-kei
and
Japanese idol
music. Gall recorded a Japanese version of "Poupee de cire, poupee de son". The film
Cherchez l'idole
, featuring Johnny Hallyday, has seen a Japanese DVD release. The ye-ye vocal group
Les Surfs
appear in the film performing their hit song "Ca n'a pas d'importance".
At the end of the 1970s, there was a brief but successful ye-ye recurrence in France, spreading across the charts of Western Europe with electro-pop-influenced acts such as
Plastic Bertrand
,
Lio
and
Elli et Jacno
and,
in a harder rock vein,
Ici Paris
and
Les Calamites
(a subgenre dubbed "Ye-ye punk" by
Les Wampas
leader Didier Wampas). Lio had a string of hits during 1980, the most famous of which was "
Amoureux Solitaires
". This new brand of ye-ye, although short-lived, echoed the synthesizer-driven sound that had surfaced recently with
new wave music
.
Because female singers dominated the ye-ye scene, the movement is occasionally seen as a feminist statement, even though the songwriters behind the singers were men, and the songs often infantilized their singers (as previously discussed in this article). That said, in lieu of a desperate and codependent voice, a fun and flirtatious point of view was often depicted. Gall's 1966 song "Baby Pop," for example, adopts a playful attitude toward the traditional institution of marriage, singing "On your wedding night, it'll be too late to regret it."
[19]
Ye-ye boys
[
edit
]
While the ye-ye movement was led by female singers, it was not an exclusively female movement. The ye-ye 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 ye-ye singers.
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 Santa Claus's daughter in "
La Fille du Pere Noel
". Among the more popular male ye-ye singers was
Claude Francois
, notable for songs such as "Belles, Belles, Belles", a French-language adaptation of
the Everly Brothers
' and
Eddie Hodges
' "(Girls, Girls, Girls) Made to Love". In Portugal, the first ye-ye bands appeared in
Coimbra
in 1956, most notably
Os Babies
, led by
Jose Cid
.
[20]
Other Portuguese bands followed afterward, including Os Conchas, Os Ekos, Os Sheiks, Os Celtas, Conjunto Academico Joao Paulo, Os Demonios Negros and singers such as Daniel Bacelar.
[21]
Impact of ye-ye
[
edit
]
The ye-ye movement maintains a particular prevalence in the music world because of its swinging, catchy rhythms and carefree lyrics. Unlike the confining strictures of society, ye-ye promoted a refreshing and invigorating newness and inevitably promoted a sort of sexual rebellion that greatly characterized the 1960s.
Dalida
's 1960 song "Itsi bitsi, petit bikini", previously recorded as "
Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot Bikini
" by
Brian Hyland
, perfectly illustrated ye-ye's newfound nonchalance and release from prudish subject matter. The song, "...which denotes a nonchalant and undisciplined listening,"
[23]
is about a girl afraid to reveal her bikini to fellow beachgoers, and it represents the shocking aspect of the lax attitude toward an increased sexuality, especially for women, as bikinis were previously considered scandalous. Similarly, ye-ye contributed to the creation of a youth culture within a postwar France that expressed a certain playfulness and carefree perspective on life. Sociologist and philosopher
Edgar Morin
commented on the rise and popularity of ye-ye music and culture, "...seeing in ye-ye's frantic, syncopated rhythms simultaneously a commodified music...of adult consumption, and a festive, playful hedonism..."
[24]
As it was for any postwar youth culture, ye-ye acted as a creative outlet that aided in defining an era as well as an identity for Europe, specifically France. The archetype of
la parisienne
, exuding an exotic charm and magnetic appeal, was greatly defined by the influence of the numerous ye-ye girls within the scene and created an indelible mark in the worlds of both fashion and style. The "...escapist, ironic..."
[25]
facets of ye-ye enticed thousands of listeners, promoting a gaiety and glamour that intertwined with the sexual freedom and modernity of the
Swinging Sixties
.
In popular culture
[
edit
]
- A 1964
Life
article titled "Hooray for the Ye-Ye Girls" attempted to introduce three popular female ye-ye singers,
Sylvie Vartan
,
Sheila
and
Francoise Hardy
, to American readers. It erroneously implies that the term "ye-ye" is derived from the shouts of the crowds watching the performers.
[26]
- In her 1964 essay "
Notes on "Camp"
",
Susan Sontag
cited ye-ye as an example of an entire genre being annexed by the
camp
sensibility.
[27]
- The Italian title of the 1966 film
Out of Sight
was
007 1/2 agente per forza contro gli assassini dello ye ye
.
- American singer
April March
brought back the ye-ye sound when she released the EP
Chick Habit
, a rewrite of the famous Serge Gainsbourg song "
Laisse tomber les filles
," and also recorded many other ye-ye-inspired songs both in the US and France.
- French-American singer Celine Dijon (an obviously parodic pseudonym) with the groups Les Sans-Culottes and Nous non plus (2002?2010).
- In 2012, French-Canadian actress
Jessica Pare
performed a version of "
Zou Bisou Bisou
" (originally sung by
Gillian Hills
) in the fifth-season premiere of the American television series
Mad Men
. Reaction to the song was such that the
AMC
network released the song as a single in digital download and vinyl formats.
[28]
- Swedish band
Therion
released a cover album called
Les Fleurs du Mal
, composed mostly of
symphonic metal
versions of ye-ye songs.
- The group Doing Time released the album
I Was a Ye-Ye Girl
in 2001.
[29]
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
yeye at Diccionario de la lengua espanola | Edicion del Tricentenario
(in Spanish) (23rd electronic ed.). Real Academia Espanola ? ASALE. 2019
. Retrieved
20 March
2020
.
- ^
(2003)
Roomba on the River: A History of the Popular Music of the Two guns
,
ISBN
1-85984-368-9
,
ISBN
978-1-85984-368-0
, p. 154: "Ye-ye IBP ? French for pop musician, a term inspired by the 'yeah! yeah!' exclamations of rock and roll."
- ^
"The Best Of ...Ye-Ye Pop"
. Crushable. 2010-03-02. Archived from
the original
on 2012-01-12
. Retrieved
2014-06-04
.
- ^
"Red Bull Music Academy Daily"
.
Daily.redbullmusicacademy.com
. Retrieved
2018-12-05
.
- ^
Tinker, Chris. "Shaping 1960s youth in Britain and France: Fabulous and Salut lescopains." International Journal of Cultural Studies. 14 (6) (November 2011): pg. 641-657.
- ^
Tinker, Chris. "Shaping 1960s youth in Britain and France: Fabulous and Salut les copains." International Journal of Cultural Studies. 14 (6) (November 2011): pg. 641?657. Online.
- ^
Lehoux, Valerie (April 28, 2012).
"La vie en musique de Francoise Hardy"
.
Telerama
(in French). Groupe Le Monde
. Retrieved
October 31,
2016
.
- ^
Hardy, Francoise
(2018) [2008]. "Two".
The Despair of Monkeys and Other Trifles: A Memoir by Francoise Hardy
[
Le desespoir des singes... et autres bagatelles
] (eBook). Translated by Graham, Jon E.
Feral House
.
ISBN
978-1-62731-0734
.
- ^
Briggs, Jonathyne (2015).
Sounds French: Globalization, Cultural Communities, and Pop Music in France, 1958?1980
.
Oxford University Press
. pp. 14?25.
ISBN
978-0199377060
.
- ^
Achterberg, P., Heilbron, J., Houtman, D., and Aupers, S. "A Cultural Globalization of Popular Music? American, Dutch, French, and German Popular Music Charts (1965 to 2006)." American Behavioral Scientist. 55 (5) (May 2011): pg. 589-608.
- ^
Looseley, David. "Fabricating Johnny: French popular music and national culture." French Cultural Studies 16 (2) (June 2005): pg. 191-203.
- ^
Briggs, Jonathyne (2012). "Sex and the Girl's Single: French Popular Music and the Long Sexual Revolution of the 1960s".
Journal of the History of Sexuality
.
21
(3): 523?547.
doi
:
10.7560/JHS21306
.
JSTOR
23322013
.
Gale
A303569262
INIST
26346886
Project MUSE
483891
ProQuest
1037957386
.
- ^
"France Gall ? Les sucettes (Videoclip).avi"
. YouTube. 2010-06-08.
Archived
from the original on 2021-12-13
. Retrieved
2014-06-04
.
- ^
BFMTV.
"L'histoire derriere Les Sucettes de France Gall, le tube au parfum de scandale"
.
BFMTV
(in French)
. Retrieved
2020-04-04
.
- ^
Nessuno. In TV esplode Mina
. Galleria della canzone site. Retrieved 27 June 2007
- ^
"Sounds: New Digs. Catalog of Cool site. Retrieved on 21 November 2007"
. Archived from
the original
on 2008-05-01.
- ^
Mina ? Fumo blu (Ta ra ta ta ta ta)
Musica e memoria site. Retrieved 21 January 2008
- ^
"Eurovision 1967: United Kingdom Sandie Shaw - Puppet on a string"
. Eurovision-contest.com. 2006-05-21. Archived from
the original
on 6 March 2012
. Retrieved
2014-03-25
.
- ^
"Why Ye-Ye Girl Style Was Secretly Feminist"
.
The Cut
. Retrieved
2018-12-01
.
- ^
"BLITZ ? 1955?1969: Quando a febre em Portugal era o Ye-Ye"
.
Jornal blitz
. Retrieved
11 May
2019
.
- ^
Lopes, Mario (29 November 2010).
"E no inicio era o ye-ye"
.
Publico.pt
. Retrieved
11 May
2019
.
- ^
Fluckiger, Laurent (12 April 2016).
"La "photo du siecle" a 50 ans"
.
Le Matin
(in French)
. Retrieved
12 May
2021
.
- ^
Birgy, Philippe (15 September 2012).
"Si cette histoire vous amuse, on peut la recommencer"
[If this story amuses you, we can start it all over again].
Volume!
(in French) (9 : 1): 151?167.
doi
:
10.4000/volume.3004
.
- ^
Looseley, David (1 August 2007). "Conceptualising Youth Culture in Postwar France".
Modern & Contemporary France
.
15
(3): 261?275.
doi
:
10.1080/09639480701461018
.
S2CID
144244339
.
- ^
"Red Bull Music Academy Daily"
.
Daily.redbullmusicacademy.com
. Retrieved
2018-12-02
.
- ^
Ye-Ye Land
Archived
September 19, 2008, at the
Wayback Machine
- ^
"Susan Sontag: Notes On "Camp" [rough unofficial]"
.
Interglacial.com
. Retrieved
11 May
2019
.
- ^
Labrecque, Jeff (December 4, 2012).
"
'Mad Men': The story behind 'Zou Bisou Bisou'
"
.
Entertainment Weekly
. Retrieved
November 30,
2020
.
- ^
"Doing Time ? I Was A Ye-Ye Girl"
.
Discogs
. Retrieved
11 May
2019
.
External links
[
edit
]
|
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Stylistic origins
| |
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Styles
| |
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Regional variants
| Africa
| |
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The Americas
| |
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Asia
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Europe
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Related topics
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