Alone

I had a fright when I settled down to this one as it isn’t on Spotify and is only on an incomplete YouTube playlist as far as I can see (where the tracks aren’t equalised for volume).

When I mentioned the Seekers, and Shocking Blue back in January, I alluded to the ‘middle of the road’ elements of popular music and also that things weren’t confined to the UK and the USA. Françoise Hardy ticks a lot of boxes: lovely voice, photogenic in that French sexist way (a tradition continued by YouTube commenters), reasonably prolific with good material. Easy to miss is that she has real talent.

Alone, released in the US in March 1970, was released in the UK in 1969 under the name One-Nine-Seven-Zero. It was released in South Africa as English 3 Confused? It was her 12th album and her 3rd in English.

I enjoyed listening to this a lot. I already like her singing in French but this was the first time I’d listened to any of her work in English. It sounds like I’m damning with faint praise when I say it is competent, and often I am, but in this case I mean it in a positive way: this is a thoroughly professional piece of work. The album is well put together, played, and sung. Her accent lends the songs an air of fey tweeness, but they are more substantial than that, while still being middle-of-the-road pop songs. I particulary like Song of Winter and Sunshine, but I’d happily have the whole album on in the shed or in the living room. It’s undemanding listening, but none the worse for that.

I link to the playlist in the first paragraph, but here’s a complete version of Song of Winter: