international girl

(because i didn't get a chance to update yesterday, this is a special double shot entry. shazam!)

was there life before the british invasion? i don't even wanna think about it most of the time. before internationalism, before the rolling stones, before psych was more than a twinkle in the cia's eye. it's a disturbing thought.

but it wasn't all so bad, because this was the heyday of the bilingual british pop princess louise cordet. something of a less cute (but no less talented) sandie shaw that time forgot, louise burst onto the scene in 1962, reaching #13 in the uk charts with the spunky girl-pop classic "i'm just a baby." vocally, she resembles nothing so much as an english-language version of the best of the yé-yé girls. as her excellent french-language singles attest, yé-yé ingènues like stella, eileen, and gillian hills ain't got nothin' on ms. cordet.

louise had a somewhat unusual pedigree for a pop singer. the daughter of tv presenter and actress hélène cordet (the family name was boisot, but louise adopted her mother's stage name) and goddaughter of the queen's husband prince philip, she traded in her life as a convent schoolgirl for pop stardom at the age of seventeen. after her initial success with "i'm just a baby," she appeared in the british popfest movies just for you in 1962 and just for fun in 1963 alongside other uk stars like peter and gordon, freddie and the dreamers, and the merseybeats.

sadly, after that first kiss, louise failed to chart another big hit. although she recorded quite a few french and english singles between 1962 and 1964, she dropped off the pop radar, and it is unknown what she has been up to since. "que m'a-t-il fait" appears on ultra chicks vol. 2 and "i'm just a baby" on ultra chicks vol. 4 (both sadly out of print but usually available on slsk and what have you), while her cover of mary wells' "two lovers" is on the jimmy page session comp this guitar kills. we can only hope that someday louise's music gets the deluxe reissue treatment it so deserves.

links:
louise cordet bio
louise on yé-yé girls (excellent discography)

while i was looking for information on movie star and elvis girl tuesday weld's lone 1960 single, "are you the boy"/"all through spring and summer," i detected a lot of hate from many of the people who deigned to mention it. "another entry in the 'actors who never should have' sung" category," sneered one such playa hata. well, y'all hataz can kiss my black ass, because "are you the boy" is one of the most charming girlpop singles ever made. it can only be surmised that those bitches are jealous that they're nowhere near as pretty. it's a damn shame that she never continued her recording career.

she may not be a vocal tour de force, but tuesday's phrasing and badass attitude are nothing to be messed with, especially on the a-side.

links:
"are you the boy" mp3
"all through spring and summer" mp3
tuesday weld fan page