Françoise Hardy is amazed to be included in Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 200 Greatest Female Singers of All Time.
• Also read: Fan club president Celine Dion laughs at Rolling Stone Awards
• Also read: Celine Dion was excluded from Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the greatest singers of all time
When asked about this honor by RTL, the musician is convinced that she does not deserve to be included.
“Of course that touches me and makes me happy, even if I don’t quite deserve to be in this ranking. It’s still abnormal that much better singers than me, like Edith Piaf, who composed La vie en rose, don’t appear there,” she reacted.
The list inaugurates Aretha Franklin, Whitney Houston, Sam Cooke, Billie Holiday and Mariah Carey in the top five positions. We then find Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, Beyoncé, Otis Redding and Al Green to complete the top 10.
Big names were left out, including that of Celine Dion. Fans of the Quebec singer did not fail to express their disagreement and anger at the decisions, which the American magazine classified as controversial.
The ranking also ignored the names of Madonna, Pink, Cher, Janet Jackson, Judy Garland, Nat King Cole, Dionne Warwick and Annie Lennox.
These omissions are all the more striking given that the price list includes less convincing female voices, notably those of Rihanna (68th), Taylor Swift (102nd), Courtney Love (130th), Carrie Underwood (158th), Sylvester (169th), Marianne Faithfull (173rd), Bonnie Raitt (187th), Kelly Clarkson (194th) and Billie Eilish (198th).
In any case, for singer Françoise Hardy “one should not pay too much attention to such rankings”. The reason ? They “change a lot from year to year”.
“It’s pretty incomprehensible, but very flattering. I won’t resist the temptation to brag about it. Just kidding,” she added humorously.
However, as the magazine noted in the preamble, this ranking “is not the list of the greatest voices,” and “what counted most was the originality, the influence, the breadth of the artist’s repertoire, and the impact of his work and legacy.” Promise Françoise Hardy meets all the criteria.