With Johnny Hallyday back with a new album a tour, I thought a look back at one of Johnny's earlier clips was in order for this week's Rétro feature.
Noir c'est Noir is another masterpiece of 60s television, an unintentionally hilarious production that could only have been made in a more innocent time when TV stations and film companies would have the budget to make this kind of thing but didn't really now what they were actually doing.
With televised performances so controlled these days, and even live performances for the camera tweaked and styled and approved by the artist's management to the point that it's more about marketing a product that the music, this kind of clip comes as a refreshing surprise.
Initially I wondered why the only colours were black and white and some red, but it's easy to forget that TV at the time would have been in black and white. It would have been interesting to see the White Stripes making a video that was influenced by this one, it would probably have worked well.
The song is a French version of the song Black is Black. Again, with the weirdness of popular music, the original English version was actually performed by a Spanish band Los Bravos, the first band from Spain to have an international hit, the song reaching number two in the UK, top five in the USA and number one in Canada.
Johnny's French version was a number one in France in October 1966, one of two number one singles he had that year.
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