Annie Philippe

Annie Philippe recorded extensively as a French pop-rock vocalist throughout the latter half of the 1960s yet remained secondary to the era’s leading female French singers in commercial impact. Her approach to phrasing and choice of repertoire often echoed the style of France Gall, another teenage singer active during the same mid-to-late-’60s period. Both favored an intentionally exaggerated girlish tone, brisk melodies, and productions that mixed Spectorian arrangements, American girl-group traits, polished mainstream French orchestral settings, wistful ballads, lively jazz organ passages, and occasionally awkward Dixieland-flavored theatrical numbers within a single release. Philippe’s delivery avoided Gall’s more pronounced childlike quality, though her song selections were also less distinctive overall. Still, many tracks conveyed the same buoyant, upbeat spirit, and numbers such as “Vous Pouvez Me Dire” and “Le Mannequin” could easily be mistaken for Gall’s work. Neither artist registers as widely familiar in American or British households, even among collectors, but listeners who appreciate Gall’s output will likely find Philippe’s recordings equally engaging.

She was first noticed around age 17, at which point accounts differ as to whether she was already employed as a disc jockey in a Paris nightclub or was instead working days in a record store and nights as an exotic dancer. In 1964 she began issuing singles guided by arranger Paul Mauriat, who had previously worked with Charles Aznavour and would later score a major American easy-listening success with the instrumental “Love Is Blue.” Mauriat contributed to the writing of several of Philippe’s sides, which ranged widely across 1960s pop idioms. Among the stronger examples are “Je Chante Et Je Danse,” driven by fiery jazz organ, the lively girl-group-styled “J’ai Raté Mon Bac,” the melancholic “Tout Finit à St-Tropez,” the mod-inflected rocker “On M’a Toujours Dit” featuring fuzz guitar and double-tracked vocals, and the British-flavored fuzz-driven “C’est La Mode,” which remains her most recognized track among English-speaking listeners. All of these performances, along with dozens more, appear on the 1999 two-CD, fifty-track anthology L’Intégrale Sixties, released in France by Magic Records.