Chilean psych-rock band The Holydrug Couple recorded a organ-heavy version of Je t’aime… moi non plus for a Record Store Day compilation. More on that here.
Posts Tagged ‘Serge Gainsbourg’
Brigitte covers Gainsbourg
03/12/2012
Kooky pop duo Brigitte (Aurelie & Sylvie) released an extended version of their quirky debut, Et Vous Tu M’Aimes?. It features a bonus disc with leftovers and covers, songs by RUN DMC (Walk this way), George Michael (I Want Your Sex) and yes, our beloved Serge. Brigitte’s take on Chez les Ye-Ye is danceable, well-arranged and one of the better cover versions, I’d say.
Brigitte – Chez les ye-ye (video of Serge’s original here)
Baptiste Trotignon, Melody Gardot
14/10/2012
Mashing-up Brel’s Ne Me Quitte Pas and Gainsbourg’s La Javanaise, it can be done, and it sounds great. French jazz pianist Baptiste Trotignon expertly ties these well-known chansons together on his new album. Ne Me Quitte Pas starts gentle, then Baptiste gets mental. Or desperate – just like NMQP. Then, he finishes in a melancholy mood, that fits La Javanaise, after all a song that’s about a love affair that lasts just one song. It all sounds very left bank. Serge and Jacques knew each other well, and toured together. I’m reading the English translation of Gilles Verlant’s indispensible Gainsbourg-biography, in which he tells stories of Brel charming every girl in the little town he, Serge and a small troupe of variety-artists passed through, with Serge taking note(s).
Trotignon covered Gainsbourg before, together with Aldo Romano he mashed-up Valse de Melody and Je t’aime… Mon non plus. On his new album, Song Song Song, Trotignon has another FS-regular as a guestvocalist. Melody Gardot is breezes (or should I say, breathes) through Mon fantôme. Nice.
Baptiste Trotignon – Ne Me Quitte Pas/La Javanaise
Baptiste Trotignon & Melody Gardot – Mon fantôme
Les Sœurs Calamites
17/09/2012
Quatre filles. From Toulon respectively PACA, short for région Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur. The Calamity Sisters are Marion (voix, g.), Laure (voix, g.), Angie (voix), and Amira (percussion). Their self-produced premier album Wakin’ Up is chock-full of irresistible barbershop harmonies – think Andrews Sisters, think Chordettes or Puppini Sisters. Last not least, the album features a highly alluring adaptation of Monsieur Gainsbourg’s La Javanaise, written originally in the early Sixties for Juliette Gréco and covered probably a million times – this one being one of the finest versions in a long, long time, tender, sexy, and with a late nite warm lips denouement that turns fingersnipping effortlessly into a dream you never knew.
Calamity Sisters – La Javanaise
Sexiest Women in French Music Today: Beyond Category
31/07/2012Countdown done, everything finished, and now you know ’em all. Almost. The FS Team chose to choose The One. The hors catégorie girl. We talked Ludivine, discussed Bardot, and of course everybody at FS loves Jane. But beyond category means something different, something that distills myth and magic, someone who transcends time, style, beauty and, of course, ultimate sexiness.
„Jeez“, my friend Matthias says. „I recall vividly how I danced with a fellow lawyer to Déshabillez-moi at his farewell party, and afterwards I had to run to the loo to rinse my mouth, since we had kissed to the final chord. That’s what Juliette Gréco does to you.“ In the beginning, she didn’t even need a voice. Boris Vian, ruling prince of St. Germain, was completely enchanted by the silence of the chain-smoking beauty with the long black hair and the cool black look, and stellar writers Jacques Prévert, François Mauriac or Raymond Queneau wrote lyrics just to hear her sing – she had „millions of poems in her voice“, as existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre tried to emcompass her magnetism. Never being part of France’s huge Babe Squad, Gréco redefined the concept of the female self, and en passant the idea of chanson. In 1959, only 32 years old, she invited a then quite unknown songwriter to her house: Serge Gainsbourg, who was so nervous that he spilled the whiskey she offered him, and couldn’t get out a single coherent sentence. Soon after he wrote Les Amours Perdues, Accordéon and La Javanaise for her, perhaps his finest songs. Better than anyone else, Gréco knew that it was all about finding a voice. That’s what she did for herself, for Serge, and for French song.
Juliette Gréco – Valse de l’au-revoir
Juliette Gréco – Mirabeau sous le pont
Freedom Fry
31/05/2012
The equation is simple – One French girl + one American guy = the band Freedom Fry. To be more exact, the duo is that of Parisian born Marie Seyrat and New York City’s Bruce Driscoll. So far, they made two EPs and a single with folksy tracks, sometimes with electronics added. Marie’s voice reminds me of Inara George’s. Most FF-songs are in English but Marie occassionally sings in French too. Like on the duo’s charming cover of Serge & Brigitte’s Bonnie & Clyde - listen to what they did with those wa-hoo-ha-hoo-hoo’s from the original. Find more Freedom Fry tracks on Bandcamp or Soundcloud.
Iggy sings Serge
09/05/2012
Iggy Pop singing in French. De indestructible rocker did it before, duetting with Emmanuelle Seigner for instance (here), singing Les feuilles mortes on his Preliminaires-album (see here) and covering Serge Gainsbourg together with Lulu, on the latter’s debut album (see here). On Iggy’s new album, he sings songs by Dassin, Piaf, Brassens and Gainsbourg again, together with covers by The Beatles, Fred Neil and Yoko Ono. When you’ve heard the accent Iggy has when he sings in French, less charming then Blossom Dearie’s I’d say, you know how those covers sound. Funny, not good. Born in 1947, Iggy was the one exception to the rule that you can’t rock out when you’re over 40. Now, he proves that crooning, re-interpreting the classics, is an art that needs more than just a deep voice. I mean, Michelle by the Beatles, by Iggy? Come THE FUCK on. Must be a joke. If you want to hear old guys doing what they do best, listen to the new Leonard Cohen album, listen to Dr John’s Locked Down, listen to Tom Jones covering Tom Waits, even. But not this.
See video of Serge singing La Javanaise HERE
Public Serge
13/04/2012
You must’ve noticed the stream of ‘public domain’ compilations with Gainsbourg-songs recorded pre-1962. Most of those rehash the same stuff, the first EPs, the Gréco-versions, the Alain Goraguer-filmscores and the odd Michèle Arnaud or Les Frères Jacques-cover. Very rarely, as fellow FS-writer Sky also noted here, such a compilation is done right, i.e. with all the relevant recording data, informative liner-notes and/or remarkable ‘new’ material. The Frémaux & Associés-released triple-cd ‘Intégrale Serge Gainsbourg et ses interprètes 1957-1960′ is a noteworthy exception. Though it’s claimed to include ’13 Titres Inédits Sur CD’, it actually has five songs that I hadn’t heard before, or couldn’t track on other compilations. Four Gainsbourg-songs recorded in 1958 in the Paris’ Alliance Française, and a live-version of Le poinçonneur… by Hugues Aufray, recorded in L’Olympia. The Gainsbourg-tracks, with their introduction and little interview, show that the stories about Serge’s stagefright weren’t exaggerated – he sounds like a rabbit in the headlights. This new comp is fairly cheap, expansive and includes enough nice covers and versions (Trumpet Boy, Simone Bartel, Francis Lemarque, the odd Los Goragueros-cover) to recommend. So there.
Serge Gainsbourg – Douze belles dans la peau (live @ Alliance Française 1958)
Hugues Aufray – Le poinçonneur des Lilas (live @ Olympia, 1958)
Agridoce
23/02/2012Brazilian correspondent Luciane strikes again, with ‘cute folk’ duo Agridoce. Who cover Serge.
“Agridoce” is the debut album and name of the parallel project by Brazilian pop rock singer Pitty with her guitarist Martin Mendezz. It’s unplugged and explores different instruments and minimalistic sounds, textures, details, it’s quite the opposite of what’s she’s used to do with her über-popular solo work.
In “Agridoce,” which means bittersweet in Portuguese, guitars are out, acoustic guitar and piano are in, along with drawers with pillows inside and such other new musical instruments. The mood is introspective and folk-ish. The album was quickly nicknamed “fofolk” or “cute folk”.
Fan of Pitty or not, it’s an interesting album to listen, especially for those who never cared about her rock band or downright didn’t like her. This is something else. It shows nuances of her voice that one couldn’t hear before.
I certainly appreciated that, even more when it comes in French.
The first French surprise in the album is the song “Ne parle pas.” They didn’t name any French influences on the interviews they gave about the project. There are a lot of songs in English on the CD, so this one stood out.
And it turns out “Ne parle pas” is self-explanatory. Pitty said she can’t speak French, so this song is precisely about that, and her desire that she could. It’s about having a lot to say, but thinking it would all come out and sound much better if she could say it in french — ah, but haven’t we all been here before?… She said she finds French very musical and embracing. “If anyone who can speak French listens to this song, there’s already a mea culpa in it,” she joked on an interview.
Volontairement kidnappée
Délibérément traînée
Décidément arrachée
Pendant que tu coules entre mes jambes
I’d say is a good start for someone so raw and newly arrived. The piano does wonders for this song.
When I thought that was all, voilà, the second surprise comes as an iTunes bonus track: Pitty singing “La javanaise,” by Serge Gainsbourg. She made it absolutely bittersweet: her voice is mellow and sad, while the piano softens up the atmosphere of goodbye at the end of a love affair.
Covering Serge — and what she said above — could be a good indication that she’s been captured by french chansons. And maybe we’ll see more from her in the future. I’d gladly welcome that.
Agridoce – La javanaise
RIP Whitney
12/02/2012On the day Whitney Houston died, it is good to remember the legendary TV interview from Michel Drucker, with Whitney and Serge, on April 5, 1986.
As a wise man said: Serge said what every one thought back then…