Song ‘adaptations’ and the globalisation of French pop, 1960–1970

Abstract

France in the early 1960s witnessed on the one hand a soaring demand for rock and twist music, and, on the other, popular and commercial resistance to foreign-language songs. This combination created an enormous opportunity for French-language remakes (‘adaptations’) sung by artists who could benefit from massive promotion by a record industry that was not yet multinational. Through a statistical analysis of hit parades from 1960 to 1970, a watershed decade for the globalisation of popular music, this article quantifies the ‘adaptations’ wave and contextualises its rise and decline. By way of conclusion, an epilogue jumps forward some 30 years to consider radio quotas and the adoption of English by young French songwriters.