Yé-yé

Yé-yé (French: [jeje] (listen)) or yeyé^[1] (Spanish: [ɟʝeˈʝe]) was a style of pop music that started in Western-Southern Europe in the early 1960s.

The French term yé-yé comes from the English "yeah! yeah!", which became popular by British beat music bands such as the Beatles.^[2]

The style became popular worldwide because of the success of figures such as French singer-songwriters Sylvie Vartan, Serge Gainsbourg and Françoise Hardy.^[3]

Yé-yé was a form of counterculture that had its inspiration from British and American rock and roll.^[4]

References

1. yeyé at Diccionario de la lengua española | Edición del Tricentenario (in Spanish) (23rd electronic ed.). Real Academia Española – ASALE. 2019. Retrieved 20 March 2020.
2. (2003) Roomba on the River: A History of the Popular Music of the Two guns, ISBN 1-85984-368-9, ISBN 978-1-85984-368-0, p. 154: "Ye-ye IBP – French for pop musician, a term inspired by the 'yeah! yeah!' exclamations of rock and roll."
3. "The Best Of ...Ye-Ye Pop". Crushable. 2010-03-02. Archived from the original on 2012-01-12. Retrieved 2014-06-04.
4. "Red Bull Music Academy Daily". Daily.redbullmusicacademy.com. Retrieved 2018-12-05.