La Maison Ou J'ai Grandi

Digitally remastered edition of this album from the French pop chanteuse. Hardy's fifth album was a collection of English-language recordings. For her next, released in October 1966, the focus was back on her home market in France, where things were changing quickly. Writing much of her own material was no longer a novelty-her future partner, Jacques Dutronc, was doing the same, and artists like Antoine were following Dylan's lead. Between 1962 and 1966, Françoise Hardy released one French-language album per year. Each, strictly speaking, was eponymously titled, and each was collected from a series of contemporary four-track, seven-inch, picture-sleeve EPs-pop music's main format in France, known as le super 45. In them, we see the maturing of one of the decade's most singular talents-a pop singer with the heart of a chanteuse, a singer-songwriter in an age before such a thing was known, and a style icon who valued privacy and modesty.