Since our sister site Late Night Music Club ran a taste of French Psych last night, I thought I would chime in and add to the mayhem with a contribution from Swiss Yè-Yè sensation Arlette Zola and an introductory excursion she made into the realm of mind-melting Psychedelia with her 1967 single Mathèmathiques Èlèmentaires.

Needless to say, this genre of French Pop was hugely popular throughout Europe in the 60's and some of it did make it to our shores via the inimitable Francoise Hardy. But Hardy was just one of a veritable tidal wave of young French Women singers who hit the studios and turned pop on its ear but sadly, we got to hear very little of it at the time.

Lucky for everyone that's changed and you get it to hear what you missed the first time around - just as if you never heard it before.

You can never say you've heard it all - but you can try. Starting with Arlette Zola.

Some French 60s Pop tonight. And you can't consider that without adding Francoise Hardy to the equation. More than any other French singer of her generation, Hardy epitomized extreme cool elegance with a seductively engaging voice. It's been said that she came along at exactly the right place and exactly the right time and what was different about her, separating her in many ways from her contemporaries, was that she wrote 80% of own material and was a talented musician in her own right.

So it really wasn't any wonder that she became a worldwide sensation during that wild period of artistic upheaval known as the 1960s. That she has maintained a worldwide popularity to this day (she's still recording and performing) is further testimony of what a great talent Francoise Hardy is.

Tonight's track comes off her 1965 Vogue Records album Francoise Hardy. Je T'aime is a pretty accurate picture of what made her such an icon.

No translation necessary.

(Nicoletta - French Pop gone intense - and no one seemed to mind)

When we think about French Pop music of the 60's names like Francoise Hardy and France Gall come to mind. Engaging, well crafted songs sung by a light breezy voice, almost whispering into the microphone.

Not Nicoletta. She was, and still is a consumer of songs (and I don't I don't mean that in the conspicuous consumption sense). A singer who wrung every possible bit of emotion out of every note she sang. She didn't sing for the passive. She sang like her life depended on it.

Nicoletta first came on the scene in 1966 and this ep featuring tonights track, Pense A L'Ete became a massive hit for her, and grabbed the attention of not only the audience but of her peers. Ray Charles was a huge admirer of hers and many of the leading pop music writers in America were offering her material in the hopes she would give the same emotion charged treatment. She did French translations of a number of American songs over the years and with great success.

Some forty years later, she is still in fine form performing as well as recording. Although probably not as well known here as in France, she is still a pop legend, no matter whose language it is.

(Francoise Hardy - when people ask to describe the 60s, I point to her)

It's hard for me not to think of the 60s without conjuring the image of Francoise Hardy. Aside from being the epitome of 60s style, she had a wonderful voice, wrote great songs and was everyone's idea of what French girls looked like - in short, everyone I knew (myself included) had fallen in love with her.

So she could have sung from the phonebook, it's true. But that she was a major talent who was, and still is, recording some great music, as well as writing it, puts her at icon status for whole generations.

This track, Et Meme is almost an homage to the Brill Building/girl groups sound of the early-mid 1960s.

I don't know - call me crazy, it still sounds fresh.