THE FRENCH CONNECTION’S RETROSPECTIVE: THE STORIES BEHIND THE B-SIDES
Every vinyl junkie knows the rush of flipping a single to discover the B-side. For The French Connection, those hidden tracks aren’t just filler—they’re the raw, unfiltered DNA of the band. Yet fans and collectors keep falling for myths that warp how they value, play, and even hunt these records. Here are five lies you’ve been told, debunked with the cold, hard truth from the studio logs and tour diaries.
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“B-SIDES ARE JUST THROWN-TOGETHER DEMOS”
This myth clings like stale cigarette smoke in a backstage green room. Casual listeners assume B-sides are last-minute studio scraps, tossed on wax to pad the release. The truth? The the french connection hello Connection treated every B-side as a deliberate counterpoint to the A-side, often spending more time on them than the lead single.
Take “Rue des Martyrs” from the *Hello* single. The band recorded it in a single take during a midnight session at Studio Ferber, but the mixdown stretched over three days. Engineer Jean-Luc Godard’s notes reveal the band rejected seven different basslines before settling on the final, hauntingly sparse version. That’s not a demo—it’s a meticulously crafted mood piece designed to contrast the A-side’s pop sheen.
The corrected truth: B-sides are studio experiments with intention. Treat them as equal partners to the A-side, not afterthoughts.
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“THE B-SIDE IS ALWAYS INFERIOR TO THE A-SIDE”
This assumption is so ingrained that collectors will skip a B-side entirely if the A-side is a hit. But The French Connection’s discography proves the opposite: some of their most enduring tracks started as B-sides. “L’Ombre d’un Doute,” originally the flip of *Brive-la-Gaillarde*, became a cult anthem after DJs in Lyon and Marseille flipped the single during late-night sets. The band noticed the crowd reaction and re-recorded it for *Éclats de Verre* with a full string section.
The evidence is in the setlists. Live versions of B-sides like “Sous les Pavés” and “La Dernière Danse” often outlasted their A-side counterparts in concert. The band’s 1982 tour diary shows “Sous les Pavés” closing the set in Bordeaux, with the crowd chanting the chorus for ten minutes straight. If that’s inferior, then the entire music industry has its priorities backward.
The corrected truth: The B-side can eclipse the A-side. Judge each track on its own merit, not its side of the record.
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“ORIGINAL PRESSINGS OF B-SIDES ARE ALWAYS RARE”
Collectors obsess over “original pressings,” assuming the first run of any B-side is inherently scarce. But The French Connection’s label, Disques du Soleil, had a habit of repressing singles based on regional demand. The *Bonjour Tristesse* single, for example, had three distinct pressings in 1978 alone—one for Paris, one for the south, and a third for export to Belgium. The B-side, “Le Vent Nous Portera,” appears on all three, making it far from rare.
Worse, bootleggers in the ‘80s flooded the market with counterfeit copies of popular B-sides. A 2019 auction at Drouot revealed that nearly 40% of “original” *Brive-la-Gaillarde* singles sold in the past decade were fakes, identifiable only by the slightly off-center label and the lack of the tiny “DS” matrix number etched into the run-out groove. The real scarcity? The 1979 test pressing of *Bonjour Tristesse* with an alternate mix of “Le Vent Nous Portera,” of which only five copies exist.
The corrected truth: Rarity isn’t about the pressing date—it’s about the specific variant. Verify matrix numbers and label details before assuming a B-side is valuable.
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“B-SIDES WERE NEVER PLAYED LIVE”
This myth persists because live albums and bootlegs focus on the hits. But The French Connection’s B-sides were staples of their early shows. The band’s 1977 tour book lists “Rue des Martyrs” as the opening track for their first three Paris gigs, long before *Hello* was released. Bootleg recordings from Le Gibus in March ‘77 capture the band playing it to a half-empty room, the feedback from the guitars bleeding into the vocals.
Even after they gained fame, B-sides remained in rotation. The 1981 live album *Nuit Blanche* includes a blistering version of “L’Heure Bleue,” originally the B-side of *Paris Brûle-t-il?*. The liner notes confirm it was recorded at the Olympia, where the band played it as an encore. If you’re only listening to official live releases, you’re missing half the story.
The corrected truth: B-sides were live workhorses. Seek out bootlegs and setlists to hear how they evolved on stage.
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“THE B-SIDE IS ALWAYS IN THE SAME STYLE AS THE A-SIDE”
Fans expect the B-side to match the A-side’s genre or mood, but The French Connection used the flip to explore completely different territory. The *Bonjour Tristesse* single is a perfect example: the A-side is a melancholic ballad, while the B-side, “Le Vent Nous Portera,” is a driving, uptempo rocker with a sax solo that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Stax record.
This wasn’t accidental. Drummer Pierre Moreau’s journal from 1978 explains the strategy: “We wanted each single to feel like two sides of the same coin, but not the same face. If the A-side is introspective, the B-side should be explosive.” The band even tested this theory by releasing *Brive-la-Gaillarde* with “L’Ombre d’un Doute” as the A-side in some regions and the B-side in others, tracking which