The term "yé-yé" jumped out at me from our list of resources on Sakai, so I wanted to do a little more research to find out what it meant since it was so unfamiliar to me. The blog (http://helloskyhello.blogspot.com/2008/02/number-one-exploration-of-french-y-y.html) that discussed the movement, by Chris Osborn, describes the movement as the French's take on American and British pop and rock that was popular at the time. The most common manifestation of this movement was girl-fronted bands playing guitars and passionately singing pop songs. Although this genre was heavily influenced by the music from other countries, there was also another large cultural change that was occurring at the time the Osborn fails to mention: the sexual revolution. This revolution, described by Jonathyne Briggs, was a "transformation in social and sexual attitudes in France", and began in the late fifties and early sixties when women began to question their traditional role of women as wives and mothers.1 These changing cultural ideas impacted the music industry in many ways. Briggs describes a change that occurred during this time was that "young women found greater freedom in public places, and the increased opportunities for interaction between men and women, including through dancing to rock and roll music, brought new possibilities for sexual contact." In addition to this, many of the ""yé-yé" girls described in the article often sang more openly sexual songs than had been previously popular. One example is Charlotte Leslie's song "Les filles c'est fait pour faire l'amour" which translates into "The Girls are Made to Make Love," which is very suggestive and openly sexual. This along with many others show the changes that were occurring and how they allowed the women of this movement to express their new sense of self and sexuality through their music.
1.Jonathyne Briggs, "Sex and the Girl's Single: French Popular Music and the Long Sexual Revolution of the 1960s", Journal of the History of Sexuality, Vol. XXI, (2012): 523-547.
Pretty hot stuff, no?! Hard to imagine those long-ago days isn't it. I always sort of wished I was born earlier, so I could have lived through all that liberation and consciousness raising as a movement. Not sure that these songs sound that "liberating" to me now, though. They sound tormented.
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