French chanteuse Francoise Hardy has passed away at 80, after a battle with laryngeal cancer. Her earlier work blazed a trail for the yé-yé style of French Pop music, including such hits as "Tous les garcons", "Mon ami la rose" and "Comment te dire adieu". Unlike many of her contemporaries in the French Pop scene, Hardy wrote much of her own material, but her artistic capabilities belied the lightweight bops and limited vocal range of her earlier career. She eventually found her artistic maturity alongside an increased sense of musical independence starting with Comment te dire adieu, culminating in the melancholy and sensuous La Question. A cultivated and refined image that belied a frank and self-effacing personality, an actress who didn't let the movies she ended up in sink her natural charisma, a capable author and essayist, but maybe above all, a game-changing pop singer who, like many others, sought to break out of the confines of her genre.
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