Sunnyside Cafe Series: Pop A Paris - More Rock N' Roll And Mini Skirts, Vol. 2 CD

Brigitte Bardot/Charlotte Les- Lie/Annie Philippe/Eddy Mithel

Sunnyside's More Rock n' Roll and Mini Skirts is another single-disc condensation of the supercool Pop à Paris five-disc series released in France that focuses on French singers from the mid-'60s to early '70s. Those discs are a lighthearted blast of Now Sound pop theatrics, aggressive, almost garagey rock, and wacky misappropriations of the American pop scene of the '60s. This disc serves as a fine (and readily available) alternative to picking up all five of the discs and as a great follow-up to Rock n' Roll and Mini Skirts. The lineup features the usual suspects like Serge Gainsbourg, France Gall, Brigitte Bardot, and Michel Polnareff with total unknowns like Stone, Annie Phillipe, and Marie LaForet mixed in to keep things obscure. The collection is jammed with wonderfully breezy and silly tracks like Charlotte Leslie's foot-stomping "Les Filles C'est Fait...," Claude Francois' unlikely Stax meets the Archies groover "Hip Hip Hurrah," the insane electro-rock of Les Yper-Sound's "Psyche Rock," and Anna Karina's impossibly silly "Roller Girl" that will have you grinning ear-to-ear like the village idiot. The best tracks, as so often is the case in collections like this, are by the best-known artists: Serge Gainsbourg's "L'Anamour," Brigitte Bardot's "Contact," France Gall's wacky and sly "Teenie Weenie Boppie," and Michel Polnareff's typically amazing "L'oiseau de Nuit." Much like the collection that preceded it, Pop à Paris - More Rock n' Roll and Mini Skirts is fun from beginning to end and is a perfect place for the uninitiated to get a taste of French pop in the '60s. ~ Tim Sendra