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Histoire de Melody Nelson by sexy serge, pretty much tops any list...

"histoire de melody nelson" is the obvious one and it is pretty damn great. there was a good compilation of his more psychedelic ("les annees psychedeliques") side that came out a few years ago and there is also the rest of the stuff he did with jane birkin, france gall, brigitte bardot and francoise hardy et cetera (all of whom have plenty of records/singles/compilations of their own knocking about that are worth a look).

next port of call should be jacques dutronc, an incredible compilation of his singles came out a few months agn ("et moi et moi et moi") and i'd heartily recommend it, every track is a stormer (lucky bar-steward was (is?) married to the aforemention francoise hardy too).

you might want to check out jean claude vannier too, he arranged most of gainsbourg's more interesting material and his "l'enfant assasin des mouches" is really good, a weird funk/psych/prog/choral concept record about a young boy killing huge flies in some sort of dream world .... yeah!

there are lots more i keep meaning to check out too, i've noticed a few johnny hallyday reissues floting around lately that look grand and his missus sylvie vartan has also had a decent looking comp put out by cherry red. hmmmm.

For french 60s ye-ye girl pop. But make sure its the original comps there was some rerelease cash-in thing which was inferior.

Gainsbourg-wise, I like Initials S.G. and Comic Strip for compliations. Although the first you might have to get off amazon or someone.

Early Michel Polnareff? - Love me, please love mehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTMBi06E_n8
Ye-ye wise, just grab a comp as people have said.
but this is my fav Francoise Hardy one (who I'd go for if you just wanted one artist comp)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VorvqTiesas

Might not have been what you were intending but lots of the chanseurs du texte wre still hanging about in the '60s. Jacques Brel, George Brassens and Leo Ferre.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiXcUTTLud4

I could have come with more a while back, but I haven't listened to this stuff in yonks.

Pushing into the 70s a bit, get that Midnight Masseriera - J.P. Masseriera thing that came out on Finders Keepers earlier in the year.

and then get some ye-ye girls stuff. the best compilation to pick up is
la belle epoque - EMIs french girls 1965-1968

thanks guys!

Primarily an actress but also a very underrated singer.

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=102761319

(and is awesome)