The Best Of Bardot

Was Brigitte Bardot a "good" singer, in the conventional sense? No. Was the material she sang in the 1960s especially deep or brilliant? No. But is this 19-track compilation of the cream of her 1963-1970 recordings a fun listen? Yes indeed. Although not the owner of conventional high-level vocal skills, Bardot invested her frivolous songs with a contagious sense of playful fun, and a refusal to take the music or herself too seriously. Certainly some of the tunes — and their breathy delivery — capitalize on her iconic sex-kitten persona. But the guileless joy she projects is reminiscent of some of the early work by France Gall (one of the finest '60s French pop singers), though Bardot's voice is less girlish and more adult in tone. Like the better French pop of the 1960s, the tracks on this disc — an "extremely selective compilation," the liner notes state, of a '60s discography that strung together "fine pearls and cheap imitations, scintillating gems and tawdry kitsch" — have a likable giddiness that borrows from early-'60s girl group and twist rock & roll on the earlier sides, and bears a slight psychedelic influence on some of the later ones.