Go to main content

La Discographie Française

June 09, 2002 | Book
Two weeks ago this book by Jean-Marie Pouzenc (published by Elvis My Happiness) finally came out, after it was postponed a couple of times. It comes with a promo CD and the description we had beforehand made us longing to see it. Does it meet the expectations?

Design


The book design is printed on 271 pages of glossy paper, which gives it a lot of weight. It is in full colour and has a wonderful design. The lay-out of the pages is very clear and it gives the reader a good overlook. The introduction and foreword are both in French and English. The real content is in French only, which is a pity but very understandable. Obviously the French fan club tried to keep the book affordable in price, delivering as much as possible for the money. Adding more translations would make the book even bigger and thus more expensive. But a translation somewhere of the most used terms (e.g. "couverture glacée" and the colours) would have been very helpful for a lot of potential readers. We guess that for that same price-reason the book has a soft cover. The promo included with the book is done in a great way: a sleeve on 7" single-format with a cardboard containing the CD in it. The front cover is the same as "Rock'n'Roll #2", the first French release, while the cardboard has the cover of an EP with the same content, called "Rock'n'Roll #3", but that was in Elvis' "own" series with that name.


Content


The foreword gives a great impression of the time in which Elvis conquered France, and the way he did it. In the first part of the book you'll find a small chapter about "a few figures", an open minded view on Elvis' record sales (in France in particular). The main content lists all French releases, from the first EP "Rock'n'Roll #2" to the upcoming "Elvis Chante Jerry Leiber et Mike Stoller". This list includes small comments about the release as well as a value indication, equalling the Euro and Dollar. Last but not least we got a complete overview of the songs that were released officially in France, all 745 of them. The whole looks very impressive and is decorated with many, many great memorabilia.


Conclusion


We can do nothing else then take a deep bow for Jean-Marie Pouzenc and "Elvis My Happiness" for releasing this wonderful product. It didn't really surprise us, since we got some magnificent CD-releases from this source over the years.


The book is available from the Elvis International Shop website, or by mail.

Related links