Sheila

Who was the Queen of 60's French pop? Sylvie? France Gall? Nope. While these two are tremendously popular among francophiles and mod/go-go fans now, back then they were just lesser lights compared to the popularity of Sheila. To this date, Sheila has sold 70 million records (!!!), and was easily the top selling ye-ye girl in France and the rest of Europe. Her image was basically that of the nice girl next door, with none of the sexuality that most people associate with ye-ye's. She wore pleated skirts and white socks and wore her hair in a modified flip with pigtails... well, just look at the picture. Basically, she was the French Lesley Gore, with suitably saccharine and sappy music. Cool people were not listening to Sheila. If Jean Ferrat was your dad's music, Sheila was the domain of your little sister.


She is probably best known in English speaking countries for the disco records she made under the name "Sheila B. Devotion", some of which feature her singing in English.

A 17 disc CD career retrospective (only 480 euros on Amazon.Fr!) was recently released and Sheila played some live shows around France in December and January to commemorate the event.

Hopefully, somewhere on those 17 discs there are songs as good as "L'Agent Secret" (tho, I ain't dropping 5 bills to find out...). Sadly, I have a feeling that "L'Agent Secret" is an anomaly in the Sheila catalog; a upbeat go-go number with acid rock freakout guitar running through it. I am curious exactly as to who the session dudes are on here(UK studio cats?), as the bass is pretty lively, too. My favorite part is the pure fuzz chord wrap-around at about 2:10. Nasty...

Once again we can thank the overwhelming trendiness of French pop and the late 60's psych explosion for this inexplicable little gem.

Sheila- L'Agent Secret


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