Although not nearly as prolific—or as world famous—as Serge Gainsbourg, there’s an easy argument to be made that eccentric French popstar Michel Polnareff comes right after Serge on the official list of Gallic musical geniuses. That so many music fans outside of France revere Gainsbourg yet have probably never even heard of Polnareff is a shame, both for them and for this unfairly overlooked performer. The simple fact is, there are very few truly great French rock musicians, and Michel Polnareff stands heads and tails above the likes of Johnny Hallyday and Téléphone.

I first heard of Michel Polnareff via mid-70s ads for his albums in Circus magazine and knew that he did the soundtrack to Margaux Hemingway’s notorious rape revenge film Lipstick, but he was just someone I saw in magazines. I heard none of his music until decades later, but when I discovered his 1971 album Polnareff’s, I played it obsessively. If it was candy, I’d have gorged myself on it until I was sick and then just kept eating. It’s really one of the most amazing and musically audacious albums of the era, up there with what someone like, say, Todd Rundgren was doing at the time (both were extreme multi instrumentalist perfectionists), but heavily influenced by the likes of Burt Bacharach, maybe the Turtles and Moody Blues and certainly Scott Walker and Gainsbourg, too. Meant to be listened to as a single suite of music, like Abbey Road or OK Computer, Polnareff’s is a grandly ambitious and brilliantly realized Baroque orchestral pop album with not a single bad track in the bunch. I’ll go so far as to say that Polnareff’s is probably the second best French rock album of all time, after L’histoire de Melody Nelson. Again second to the great Serge Gainsbourg, but I mean Monsieur Polnareff no disrespect here, obviously. (Third on my list of great French rock albums would be Les Rita Mitsouko’s The No Comprendo, so as you can see, Polnareff’s is bookended by greatness in my estimation.) It’s really one of the most amazing records ever made. Don’t believe me? AllMusic’s Thom Jurek, a man known for his refined rock snob tastes calls it a “psychedelic pop masterpiece.” It is! He also writes that “it’s like an early model for the excesses of Fleetwood Mac’s Tusk.” Right again!
 

 
Finding the musicians and recording studios of Paris insufficient for his needs, Polnareff’s first hit was the unstoppably catchy “La poupée qui fait non” recorded in 1966 when he was just 21 and featuring the then-prominent London session musicians Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones. The song was covered by Ronnie Wood’s mod group The Birds, Jimi Hendrix and Saint Etienne.
 

 
More Michel Polnareff, after the jump…

 
The 1968 French sexual revolution comedy Erotissimo is one of those ultra stylish Sixties films that art director types go totally nuts over. With good reason.

Starring Annie Giradot as a married woman confused by the rapid change in sexual mores around her. Erotissimo takes place precisely at the point in the 1960s where SEX became an inescapably “in your face” component of modern life, advertising and urban dwelling. As such, it is a perfect time capsule of the end of one era and the beginning of another. Giradot’s heroine struggles to understand the matters I presume would have been vexing a fair amount of the film’s audience during that time period as well.

But plot aside, the film’s reputation these days is due to its unique—and very Sixties—art direction: Gerard Pires’ Erotissimo looks like almost no other film I can think of. Nearly every frame is a masterpiece of visual composition, in the vein of William Klein’s Who Are You, Polly Magoo? The groovedelic soundtrack is the aural equivalent of a white molded plastic chair…
 


 
Mod Cinema sells a DVD of Erotissimo with English subtitles, making it possible for those of us who paid no attention in French class to enjoy this treat.

A married woman in her 30’s (Annie Girardot) tries to spice up her sex life with her distracted husband Philippe (Jean Yanne) under the deluge of sexy Swedish movies, sexy advertising on the streets, sexy intimate clothing in ladies’ shops, and even talks about sex and marital infidelity with her mother and female friends. Philippe, a general manager of a dynamic company specializing in baby products becomes preoccupied with an upcoming tax audit. Even the presence of a beautiful fashion model who lives with Annie’s brother fails to divert his attention. This amazing and colorful work of 60’s pop art features an original psychedelic soundtrack by French composer William Sheller & singer-songwriter Michel Polnareff, and don’t miss the cameo by monsieur Serge Gainsbourg!

Gainsbourg’s cameo is appropriately sleazy: He plays a guy who hits on Annie as she is leaving a Swedish “art film.”
 

 
Below, the NSFW Erotissimo trailer:
 

 
Having spent my early teen years in France, I was exposed to alot of French rock singers. Of course I was in love with Francoise Hardy and I owned a bunch of singles by Johnny Halliday and Sylvie Vartan. The Yé-yé scene was my scene. Michel Polnareff became a star after I left France but I was still following French rock close enough to appreciate his distinctive style, which was more Brit poppish and American West Coast hippie than his French peers.

English recording studios offered more advanced technology than Paris, so Polnareff went to London to record La Poupée Qui Fait Non. It was released in 1966 and immediately became a huge hit. Great French rock songs are rare and this one hovers at the edges of greatness.

La poupée qui fait non translates as ‘the doll who says no’.

She is a doll who says “no, no, no no”
All day long, she says “no no no no no”
She is, she is so cute
That I dream of her all night
She is a doll who says “no, no, no no”
All day long, she says “no no no no no”
No one has every taught her
That one can say “oui”
Without even hearing, she says “no no no no”
Without looking at me she says “no no no no”
However I would give my life
for her to say “yes”
However I would give my live
That she would say “yes”
But she is a doll, who says “no no no no”
All the day long she says “no no no no”
No one has taught her
That it’s possible to say “yes”
Oh no no no non no
no no no
She says no.
 

 
La Poupée Qui Fait Non has been covered by many artists, including Saint Etienne and Jimi Hendrix. This version by Mylène Farmer and Khaled is the loveliest in my opinion.
 

 
Hendrix does La Poupée Qui Fait Non after the jump…