Poupées that go NO

Michel Polnareff's La Poupée qui fait non, a 1966 ode to either a toddler that is in her nay-saying phase, or a beautiful girl who likes to keep all options open, has been covered many times, in many ways. Even by Polnareff himself: he did an Italian and a German version of the song. Best known cover is by Cristina, the wife of ZE Records boss Michael Zilkha. Back in the eighties, ZE was the label that released Lio, John Cale and Kid Creole & The Coconuts. Cristina Monet was a Harvard educated theatrecritic, who made two albums, with enormous stylistic variety. Her Poupée-version was produced by August Darnell (a.k.a Kid Creole), and as Silverlakeblvd once remarked: "It features clichéd calypso steel drums versus clichéd disco cow bell plus skeletonized fragments of fake Gene Krupa, with vocal stylings by the ineffable Cristina, sounding like a lunatic talking to herself in the street."
Saint Etienne did a English language cover for a Polnareff tribute, whilst Italian newwave-disco hero Ivan Cattaneo covered it in Italian. Mylene Farmer did a live version en duo with the king of raï Khaled, American rockband slash francophiles Luna rocked it, and French teen star Danielle made a europoptrash version last year. Ofcourse the song was redone by a Japanese artist, in this case Sonoko.

UPDATE: thanks to Dennis and Frans, this post has grown enormously. Merci guys! If you have more versions, please share (see profile for email).

The Master
Michel Polnareff - La Poupée qui fait non (see on Daily Motion)
Michel Polnareff - Meine Puppe sagt nein (in German) (see on YouTube)
Michel Polnareff - La bambolina che fa no no no (in Italian)

Female French
Cristina - La Poupée qui fait non
Sonoko - La Poupée qui fait non
Elli Medeiros & Jacno - La Poupée qui fait non
Mylene Farmer & Khaled - La Poupée qui fait non (see on YouTube)
Danielle - La Poupée qui fait non

Male French
NEW: Johnny Hallyday - La Poupée qui fait non
Les Sultans - La Poupée qui fait non (see on YouTube)
Luna - La Poupée qui fait non
Florent Pagny & Kad Achouri - La Poupée qui fait non
C. Jerome - La Poupée qui fait non

Female English
Saint Etienne - La Poupée qui fait non
Saint Etienne - La Poupée qui fait non (live) (see on YouTube)

Male English
The Birds - La Poupée qui fait non
Jimi Hendrix - La Poupée qui fait non
The Otherside - La Poupée qui fait non
Finnegans Wake - La Poupée qui fait non
Scott McKenzie - La Poupée qui fait non

Male Italian
Quelli - La Bambolina che fa no no no
Ivan Cattaneo - La Bambolina che fa no no no
Alberto Camorini - La Bambolina che fa no no no

Female Japanese
Nomoto Karia - Non Non Ningyou

NEW: Female Spanish
Los Compays - La muñeca que dice no

John

Another MySpace-discovery: John (real name Johanna). She started out as a dancer and choreographer, but after she discovered the power of her voice over her feet, she wanted to express herself in another way. She collaborated with Dominique Pankratoff, who wrote for Isabelle Aubret and Michèle Torr. Other lyrics were written by people like Jean-Marie Moreau and Julie Daroy. John's voice is fragile and very sensual, and reminds me a little of Keren Ann - her MySpace-url isn't Myspace.com/labiographiedejohn by coincidence, I guess. No album yet, for her career is just starting, but John has made a videoclip you can see on her that site.


John - Vu de l'interieur

Carla

On January 15, No Promises will be in the shops. FINALLY the new album by Carla Bruni, and as you can tell from that title, it's all in English. Yes, I'll hold [...]. Louis Bertignac was at the controls again, so the atmosphere of 2002's Quelqu'un m'a dit was kept. For the lyrics, texts written by William Butler Yeats, Wystan Hugh Auden, Emily Dickinson, Christina Rossetti, Walter de la Mare and Dorothy Parker were used. If you surf to Carla's official site right now, you can listen to two new songs.
Carla sang in English before, for instance Those Little Things (Ces Petits Riens) on the tribute Mr Gainsbourg Revisited, and on Oceana, trumpeteer Till Brönner's last album. My Secret Life is a cover of a Leonard Cohen-song.

Till Brönner & Carla Bruni - My Secret Life
Carla Bruni - Those Little Things
PLUS: Carla in Italian, featuring jazz-legend Aldo Romano:
Carla Bruni & Aldo Romano - Io qui tu li
PLUS: a cover of Quelqu'un m'a dit by Les Enfoirés, which is a for-the-occasion team-up of Marc Lavoine, Patrick Bruel, Zazie and Francis Cabrel:
Les Enfoirés - Quelqu'un m'a dit

Roxane

Remember Roxane K? The little tease is preparing an album along with her guitar called Octobre, due next spring. Via this site, you can pre-order one, or at least show your interest in her debut. And why wouldn't you? She'll be our Lily Allen. Our Arctic Monkey. Our whatever other artist that was discovered on MySpace first. More Roxane here and here.

Amelie

Lately, thanks to FS-readers I'm discovering wonderful French songs and artists from the eighties. Santo Gold introduced me to Amélie Morin. You could say she's the eighties-equivalent of Clothilde: off the hook music with a delicate, girlie voice. Amélie was born in Paris, but grew up in Quebec. In Montreal, she sang and danced. When she returned to Paris, she found a job as voice of a cult-cartoonseries called Candy. When Jean-Yves Luley asked for her help while recording a couple of songs (among them the duet J'y vois bien dans ta tête), she was discovered by two wide-eyed producers - their first meeting inspired them to write Amélie's first 1981-hitrecord, J'tais venue pour dire bonjour. This combination of gothic chants, a pouting little girl and a reggaebeat became a culthit in France. She recorded more songs, like the mad gypsy-opera Rien ne vas plus and hot pink bubblegum-dancetrack Jim, plus a couple of albums. When she stepped out of the spotlights, she kept voicing films and tv-series. It's been 25 years since J'tais venue pour dire bonjour was released, in September a double compilation came out. This very dedicated site says there were talks of a comeback. As far as I know, nothing happened.

Amélie Morin - J'tais venue pour dire bonjour
Amélie Morin - Rien ne vas plus
Jean-Yves Luley & Amélie Morin - J'y vois bien dans ta tête

Austine (4)

I've been singing the praise of lovely Austine for over a year now - finally her first full album Ouh la la la hit the stores. And it's marvellous. If there ever was a singer who defined 'fille sourire', ít's Austine. Her tender, breathy voice, the gentle acoustic guitar, the songs about being vulnarable, being in and out of love and darker stuff - you could say she's the Françoise Hardy of our time. Born in Lille, living in Rennes right now, Austine made two EP's and now this album On her MySpace-site you can see her musical favourites are chanson-big guns like Brassens and Vian, softpop-heroes like Prefab Sprout and Belle & Sebastian, plus Gainsbourg, Fela, Dylan and Marvin. This MySpace-site also offers a free download of a non-album track!

Austine - Cigale Glacée
Austine - Décalquée

Lilee

Remember triphop? Back in the nineties, I devoured almost every band and artist who were categorised as triphop - although not every band liked that label. Sneaker Pimps were one of my favourite bands, their first album Becoming X is a collection of sultry, sexy spherical songs. Almost every new dance-genre gets tiresome after a while, and so did triphop. I kept a couple of albums that still work, by the bigshots like Massive Attack and Portishead, but also by fairly unknown bands like Mono and Andrea Parker, and do play them every now and then. Sneaker Pimps-memories (I saw them a couple of times back in the day, when Kelli Dayton still sang with them, awesome band) came back when I heard Respire by Lilee. Industrial undertones, sexy vibe, jazzy overtones. Love it. Very little is known about this Belgian singer, and she likes to keep it that way. For now. Rumours that Lilee is also writer-director Rachel Lecomte are not denied, though.

Lilee - Respire
(Sneaker Pimps - Spin Spin Sugar)