In addition to music, Hardy landed film roles as a supporting actress in Château en Suède, Une balle au cœur, and the American production Grand Prix.

[43] It featured numerous arrangers, including Bernard Estardy, Jean-Claude Vannier, Jean-Pierre Sabar, Mick Jones, Saint-Preux, Simon Napier-Bell, and Tommy Brown from Nero and the Gladiators.

[42][47] Hardy made an album with Tuca after attending the Festival Internacional da Canção in Rio de Janeiro and discovering the music of Brazil[24][42][48] This was the first time in her career that she had worked on material with another songwriter before going into the studio.

[55] After finishing Et si je m'en vais avant toi, Hardy and Cox recorded the English-language album If You Listen, which included cover versions of little-known American and British songs.

[61] Produced by Hughes de Courson, the concept album Entr'acte was released in November 1974 and promoted through the songs "Ce soir", "Je te cherche", and "Il y a eu des nuits".

[66] The album changed Hardy's musical direction to a more danceable sound and it was a commercial success, aided by the popularity of the lead single "J'écoute de la musique saoûle", especially in its extended remixed version.

[67] The album cover, photographed by a collaborator from Façade, a French magazine modelled after Andy Warhol's journal Influence, projected a "furiously modern" image of the singer[67] and Gin Tonic was promoted with the singles "Jazzy rétro Satanas" and "Juke-box".

[67] Hardy's next album, À suivre, was released in April 1981 on the Flarenasch label, in breach of her contract with Pathé-Marconi,[68] and featured a new array of collaborators, with Yared enlisting composers Louis Chedid, Pierre Groscolas, Jean-Claude Vannier, Michel Bernholc, Daniel Perreau, Jean-Pierre Bourtayre, and Étienne Roda-Gil.

She aligned herself with the so-called "conditionalist" school of thought, outlined by Jean-Pierre Nicola in his 1964 book, La condition solaire, which proposed a non-divinatory character for the discipline and said that it should be used while taking into account other factors such as hereditary, educational, and socio-cultural determinants.

[98][65] In 1990, Hardy continued her astrological work by writing articles in Swiss newspaper Le Matin and by hosting a weekly section in Thierry Ardisson's program Télé Zèbre on Antenne 2.

[114][115] Rock & Folk's Basile Farkas described her as the "queen of melancholy",[116] and Hardy herself stated in 2012: "In music, I like above all the slow, sad melodies… Not in a way that plunges, but in a way that uplifts… I still aspire to find the heartbreaking melody that will bring tears to my eyes.

Aside from original compositions, much of her 1960s repertoire consisted of versions of foreign artists that spanned a wide range of styles, including American girl-groups, early rockabilly, pre-Beatles British rock and roll, country music, folk, folk-rock and, to a lesser extent, doo-wop and soul.

[122] In the early 1960s, she was introduced to English-language rock and roll and Brill Building pop through Radio Luxembourg and took inspiration from artists such as Brenda Lee,[53] the Everly Brothers, the Shadows, Cliff Richard, Neil Sedaka, Connie Francis, and especially Elvis Presley and Paul Anka.

[9] Hardy's music during the second half of the decade incorporated influences from the British Invasion pop phenomenon and "a strong comeback of the traditional values of French chanson, neither yé-yé nor 'Left Bank',[note 1] but rather romantic".

[22][135] [131] Her next album, Le premier bonheur du jour, incorporated more complex instrumentation and lyricism,[23] with electric organs and "weeping" string arrangements[131] and included compositions inspired by jazz music and American girl groups such as the Crystals and the Ronettes.

[137] According to Pitchfork's Hazel Cills: "It wasn't until her fifth record, La maison où j'ai grandi, that Hardy grew into a more grown-up, baroque sound, one that matched the depth of her sorrow and its complexities.

[131] With Ma jeunesse fout le camp, her last 1960s album recorded in London, she "moved toward a more adult, sedate form of orchestrated pop balladry"[138] which has been described as "her farewell to the yé-yé years".

[5] Described as "the first truly personal Françoise Hardy record",[145] the 1971 album La question, moving toward a less commercial sound with no apparent hooks, was regarded as an important turning point in her career.

[149] In the same year, Hardy released Et si je m'en vais avant toi, which incorporated influences from American blues, folk, and rock music[55][150] and featured, unusually, a slightly humorous tone and catchier rhythms.

[144] The 1974 release Entr'acte was Hardy's first attempt at a concept album, with lyrics that narrated "the successive phases of a one-night stand between a stranger and a young woman, who, abandoned by the man she loves, is looking to give him a taste of his own medicine.

[113][78] As Hardy's almost exclusive photographer and agent during the decade,[81] Jean-Marie Périer became a Pygmalion-like figure for her,[5][170][171] and transformed the singer's public image from "a shy, gauche-looking schoolgirl" into a "modern young trend-setter.

[205] Belgian illustrator Guy Peellaert used Hardy as a model for the title character of his 1968 pop art and psychedelic-inspired comic Pravda la Survireuse, made in collaboration with French screenwriter Pascal Thomas.

[122][7] It began: "for françoise hardy/at the seine's edge/a giant shadow/of notre dame/seeks t' grab my foot/sorbonne students/whirl by on thin bicycles/swirlin' lifelike colors of leather spin..."[123][209] In 2018, Hardy told Uncut that she had drafts of the poem that Dylan had left in a café.

The conversation strayed into politics, the 1988 French presidential election having taken place the day before,[70] and believing that an off-the-record discussion would not be included in the final article, Hardy expressed contempt for people on the left.

"[213][214] This prompted her son Thomas Dutronc to write on Twitter: "But no mom, don't worry I'll invite you over to my place just in case..."[215][216] Hardy later denied claims that she would be homeless and clarified that "the tragedy is the people who are losing their jobs because of offshoring and the [European debt] crisis".

If the music of the yé-yé girls was always a jovial gleam that dazzled, that of Françoise Hardy survives as perhaps the most intense due to her sentimental complexity, a whole swirl of past and future nostalgia sung with overwhelming intimacy.

[227] Outside the French-speaking world, she has been mentioned as an inspiration to female singer-songwriters like Caroline Polachek,[228] Charli XCX,[229] Angel Olsen,[230] Candie Payne,[231] Erin Rae,[232] Heather Trost,[233] Violetta Zironi,[234] Zooey Deschanel and Cat Power.

[239] In an article for Into Creative, Filmmaker Grant McPhee described her as 'A poster-girl for shy people and a fantasy figure for believing they too can be cool' [240] In 2021, Rivers Cuomo of American rock band Weezer cited Hardy as one of his "sonic ideals",[241] and side he was particularly influenced by her album Message personnel.

[242] Greg Gonzalez of American dream pop band Cigarettes After Sex called Hardy one of his biggest musical influences,[243] stating in 2016: "La question is just so perfect, I wanted that kind of beauty.

[42] She felt especially proud of La question, stating in 2008: "while it did not enjoy great success with the public at large, at least I can claim that it did touch another audience… Often an ambitious record can be more or less ignored when it is released but ends up having a long life.