Brigitte Fontaine is far more than a chanson singer — she is an artistic persona, a poet, an avant-gardist. The remastered special edition of her 1968 album Est… Folle brings one of French pop’s most idiosyncratic works back to life in striking clarity: an album that fuses chanson, orchestral pop and experimental poetry in mesmerising fashion.
The reissue restores all this to full light. The strings and horns sound sharper, the rhythms more alive, Fontaine’s voice more piercing than ever. Her lyrics now feel almost more contemporary than they did then — angry, playful, sardonic and, as a result, timeless. The enigmatic beauty that always resided in her work resurfaces here in undiminished force.
Songs like »Il Pleut« and »Je Suis Inadaptée« show how Fontaine merged speech and song into a performative language that defied all musical convention of its time. This remaster brings out the raw energy without smoothing the charm of the original recordings. The special edition adds demos, instrumentals and a live version, offering a rare glimpse into Fontaine’s creative process.
Est… Folle is no nostalgic artefact but a living document of a moment when pop music reinvented itself — poetic, anarchic and female.
