It’s hard to explain why I think the French have a virtual monopoly on producing cool girls, whose coolness and a certain level of fuck-you-but-I-can’t-be-bothered insouciance remains unconfined to any one field of work (musicians, journalists, fashion bloggers, actresses, lawyers- that’s how varied it gets), but it’s really hard not to be in awe of them. And if I tried to post about all of them, it’d take forever- so I’m sticking to two.
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Françoise Hardy – Comment te dire adieu
Françoise Hardy (on the bike up there) was someone I discovered via a fashion magazine, following which I went on an mp3 hunt- and found that, quite at odds with the cigar-raspy alto I’d expected, her voice is actually on the softer side of the spectrum..
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The other Cool French Girl of this post is actually half Brit, and one of those rather rare things- a singer and actress who is really good at being both (most recent evidence: 5:55 and The Science of Sleep, plus a Best Actress award at Cannes for Antichrist this year).
Charlotte Gainsbourg- Elastique
It’s one of her very early songs, and I rather like the breathiness of her voice- it’s a bit like her mother’s but more natural, somehow.
And here is the video for Elastique…she looks like such a kid here..
Have you heard The Plastiscines? I liked that one song of theirs “Loser”. Strokes-y,
I find French coolness a bit on the camp side. Like they’re taking the piss out of it.
Yeah, the French rock scene got a lot of press a couple of years ago- they weren’t bad, but I’m not sure if they’re still together.
They do have a monopoly on coolness. Quite unfair.
Coolness is a subjective and meaningless concept. There are/were many cute and even stunningly beautiful women/girls from many nations. Agnetha Faltskog was a cutie if ever there was one. Ellen Foley was drop-dead beautiful. Nancy Sinatra definitely had more than just something. Unfortunately, so many women blessed with great looks are not as good as they look. I like them all the more if I find out they are also intelligent, compassionate, practical and stable with a total lack of bitchiness. Coolness, defined as uncaring at the top of this page, is not attractive.
Thanks for the sermon, Chris. You’re free to find whatever you like attractive, no arguing with that (the qualities you cited are indeed admirable, and equally desirable in men as in women). But if you actually read the post up there, you might have found that there isn’t a single word in it about anyone’s looks, aside from commenting that a then fourteen-year-old Charlotte Gainsbourg looked like a kid.
And as you said, coolness is a subjective concept. You’re free not to find it attractive, but that doesn’t mean no one else should.