Serge Gainsbourg

Mayra Andrade

  • Posted on 20/12/2010
  • /Under Musique

The Sunday Times called her „voice from Cape Verde“, possibly due to the fact that Mayra Andrade sings a lot of songs in Cape Verdean Creole, though she’s born in Cuba and grew up in Senegal, Angola, and Germany. Her records smell a bit of the well-designed eau de toilette of all those other industry working girls mixing world music with those certain hints of Brazilian folklore, body lotion fado, and authentic leather sofa jazz/ethno feel that probably will earn her a guest job on Charlie Haden’s next „Sophisticated Ladies“ volume. She’s got taste anyway: Her new live album, Studio 105, features also Serge’s La Javanaise, written originally for Juliette Gréco in 1959, in a kind of worn-out sugardaddy’s club version, definitely not as intimate as it tries to be, but actually quite a winning one.

Mayra Andrade – La Javanaise

Peau Douce

  • Posted on 18/12/2010
  • /Under Video

All-too-short perfume spot, but eyecandy all the way, plus the right bedroom sound.

L’amour à la Gainsbourg

  • Posted on 16/12/2010
  • /Under Video

Adjani lookalike Caroline Grimm recorded this one, an élastiquely carribean-ized disco-pop number that made my sister buy her first dessous on Ibiza in 1988.

C’est chic

  • Posted on 01/12/2010
  • /Under Musique

Looking for the Perfect Christmas Gift? C’est Chic!, a wonderful compilation on the reliable Ace/Kent reissue label. It features ’24 hand-picked gems form France, epicenter of the 1960s yé-yé-girl phenomenon’. A few hits, like Anna Karina’s Roller Girl and France Gall’s Laisse tomber les filles, but a lot of fairly obscure gems indeed. Like Michèle Torr’s Non, à tous les garçons. A song written by Serge Gainsbourg. Or the baroque Je ne sais pas ce que je veux (a cover by sixties-band Nirvana,reworked by Hardy herself). A thick booklet with great info (main informant: Graham from the excellent Ready Steady Girls) comes along with it. This is no cd you’d want to download, this is one you want to own. And I’m not saying that ’cause this blog is mentioned as a reference source. A nice surprise.

Françoise Hardy – Je ne sais ce que je veux
Nirvana – Tiny Goddess
Michèle Torr – Non, à tous les garçons

UPDATE: FS-visitor Teyo mentioned in the comments that Andreas Dorau sampled the Hardy-track. For a wonderful song, I might add.
Andreas Dorau – Allein im Park

Vanessa Paradis

  • Posted on 25/11/2010
  • /Under Musique

So, what are we learing from the latest live-album by Vanessa Paradis, recorded at the Opera de Versailes? Well, nothing. Because from earlier live-records we already knew that she really, really can sing. That she has many great songs in her catalogue. That if you re-arrange those songs for a string quartet, or an acoustic setting, they’re still great songs. So the real question concerning Une nuit à Versailles isn’t: how does it sound? Or: is it a good show on the dvd? No, it’s: just how lovely does she look in the 56-page photo-book that comes along in the deluxe version. Then again, we already know the answer to that question too, right? (See a bootleg-vid of VPs Versailles-show here).

Vanessa Paradis – Dis-lui toi que je t’aime

Alfa Rococo

  • Posted on 23/11/2010
  • /Under Musique

Serge Gainsbourg’s Le Poinçonneur des Lilas with a sweet ska-backing – that’s a fresh take. On the former FS-blog, we once posted 25 varieties of the song about the unhappy ticket puncher, but that were mostly jazz-reworks. This new version comes courtesy of Alfa Rococo, the Canadian pop-duo that just released their new album. A great album, with added electronic touches. Posted the first single before (this one), and though I’m not sure if the lyrics really fit a backing like this, I surely don’t mind while skanking on it. See a very nice acoustic version of the song by David and Justine here.

Alfa Rococo – Le poinçonneur des Lilas (original version here)

Pop Bâtard XV: C’est le vent, Serge

  • Posted on 17/11/2010
  • /Under Musique

“Mash ups/ Bastard pop is a musical genre which, in its purest form, consists of the combination (usually by digital means) of the music from one song with the acapella from another. Typically, the music and vocals belong to completely different genres. At their best, bastard pop songs strive for musical epiphanies that add up to considerably more than the sum of their parts”, writes Markyboy on his highly recommended website, and if you’re not familiar with the genre, that’s quite a spot-on definition. On Je t’aime quand le vent souffle, he fuses Serge’s everlasting “Every time I put my shirt back on, she takes it off again” hymn to BB with I’ll Leave When the Wind Blows by Oklahoma neo-soft rockers All American Rejects. A smooth one which works just fine.

Markyboy – Je t’aime quand le vent souffle

FS Rerun: The Other Serge

  • Posted on 09/11/2010
  • /Under Musique

Casque d’or, La ronde, Le doulos, L’armée des ombres: Serge Reggiani  was already a highly acclaimed star of the French silver screen when he – encouraged by Simone Signoret and Yves Montand – turned to singing in 1965 with SR chante Boris Vian. His chef d’œuvre may well be Rupture (1971; see right) – a brilliant album oscillating between grand melancholy, mild cynicism and mature knowledge unsurpassed in the history of French song. La putain combines Reggiani’s unique phrasing with a perfectly arranged composition by Michel Legrand and the classy poetic imagery of lyricist Jean-Loup Dabadie – a 3:42 min short story about the lost bird of youth and those secrets behind the jalousies.

Serge Reggiani – La putain

Bonus: Serge G. with his seldom-played take on whores from the soundtrack of Just Jaeckin’s 1977 soft-porn flick Madame Claude (PG recommended), with a wink and a sneer towards Bach’s Jésus, que ma joie demeure.

Serge Gainsbourg – Putain que ma joie demeure

Dia de los muertos (2)

  • Posted on 01/11/2010
  • /Under Musique

Short but sweet guestpost in honour of the Day of the Dead (2/11) by Anna Maria:

Gainsbourg wearily hisses at the man who stole his Jane in a sunny setting, but his words sting with acidic intent. Perhaps he didn’t really wish for his rivals’ death but he sure liked to vent a little. A good song to wish for the worst for your enemies, and then maybe forgive them and move on. And maybe you’ll remember the ones you can no longer see and miss them a little too.

Serge Gainsbourg – Vieille Canaille

This is the original version, by the way.

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