'70s French Pop Essentials
Apple Music
Shifting from the heady sensuality of the yé-yé years—though there was always a soupçon of sex when Serge Gainsbourg was near—the ’70s saw a great expansion of French music as popular ’60s artists opened up to outside influences. The name of the decade’s leading style, variété française, says it all— underscoring a diversity that ranges from the soft textures of Francis Cabrel’s folk to the disco grooves of Patrick Juvet. But pop needn’t replace poetry. The arousing vibratos of Mireille Mathieu and Jean Ferrat were never as definitive as in that era.