Music. Françoise Hardy’s favorite cover

“It is difficult for me to give the reasons for my preference for this cover, they seem so obvious to me. For a very long time – no doubt thanks to my relationship with Jean-Marie Périer ⁽¹⁾ – I was attentive to the aesthetics of a cover, a book cover: photo, layout, characters, colors…

I appreciate monochrome, warm colors and attach great importance to lighting and framing. Here, the photo of the profile against the light is very beautiful, this one having been reversed to bring together two same profiles in an aesthetic and original way, which still excites me today. This cover is unique and, although dating from 1972, is extraordinarily modern. I would even call it timeless, because it is as exceptional today as it was yesterday, and always will be.

Jean-Marie had given this future cover as it was, explaining it as follows: “It was a montage, I took the slide of the image left side and I re-photographed it right side right next to the other. It was taking forever. » Andréa, the graphic designer, found the title and its location as well as elaborated the back. Although much simpler, his work was also perfect.

At the time, the albums were not titled. This has most often been referred to as the “orange album”. I appreciate the content, recorded in Britain with a group chosen by the young director Tony Cox. It was the first time that I was so anxious during a session because the orchestration was not done in advance and the musicians had to find it on the spot. Exceptionally, I financed the production and I had never waited so long.

On the basis of my little model, the musicians were looking without me being able to realize, or very little, the form that it would end up taking, but suddenly the miracle happened. The titles, which I had almost all written and composed, were rock’n’roll or bluesy. This album is one of the ones I’m most proud of. »

(1) Photographer of the stars, companion of Françoise Hardy in the 1960s.

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