Serge Gainsbourg

[peerke]

If you like Gainsbourg I think you should Jacques Brel give a try. I rate him even higher then Gainsbarre!

Anyway, here's some info in English about our Serge:http://www.francevision.com/nsltr/vf14/gains.htm



 

[zelilgirlI1cenu]

......... and boy, he makes us suffer sometimes.

Doesn't he just, but he is a real popular artist, like Piaf was, and amen to your analysis!

[dogbreath]

Hey! Zelil! Close this window! The boss is coming!

[zelilgirlI1cenu]

Yes, you're right, that would be me.

Zelil - (to herself) time to check out the SG thread and see if dogbreath is around
Zelil - WHAT! I caught you yet again procrastinating on your deadlines
Zelil - stop giving a bad conscience
Zelil - WORK, you lazy sod, and close that window at once!
Zelil - OK Boss!

poof she's gone!

[Jason]

Ian, I dig your comment about Serge being a better Zappa than Zappa was. Kudos, friend.

[dogbreath]

Serge a better Zappa than Zappa?

SG was a completely insular hedonist and serial drug abuser. Zappa deplored musicians getting out of their heads, and his drug of choice was tobacco. Zappa was a band-leader, always, Serge never. Zappa lived in the studio and touring on the road, Serge lived in bars and beds. Zappa was a studio perfectionist and virtuoso musician, Serge couldn't give a fucck.

If you want to measure them in terms of public outrage, I don't think either of them was perticularly "offensive" (whatever). Zappa shot his mouth off to his own semi-political agenda, Serge got drunk and swore. Neither exactly made the walls of the city shake with their revolutionary posture; Serge was loved for it, Zappa largely ignored (at least by the people he wanted to affect).

So I don't get the Zappa/Ganisbourg connection, is what I'm saying: worth taking further?

[jazzfascist]

I’ve got the “Comic Strip” compilation and “Melody Nelson”, I like it, but it’s also very theatrical, very campy, very french. “Melody Nelson” relies just as much on the moods and arrangements plus Gainsbourg’s own “star quality”, as he talks over the tracks, rather than actual songs. But as a nihilistic popmusician, I guess he couldn‘t be bothered. Really an example of the singer/speaker not the song. I wonder if the rest of his records are like that.
Also heard some of the stuff he did with Brigitte Bardot like “Bubble Gum“, “Comic Strip”, “Harly Davidson”, “Contact”. Sounds like an example of french pop music, trying to come to terms with the ever-pervading american popmusic and american cultural pehenomena.
Best is “Comic Strip”. “Harley Davidson” sounds like his version of “Leader Of The Pack”. ”Contact” sounds pretty modern, but also like a kind of oldfashioned concept of what is modern-sounding , a little like Esquivel.
He should have worked with Nico, instead of the little girls he preferred. Maybe they could have done a duet of  “Requiem Pour Un Con”. I wonder what that would have been like, two nihilists fighting over nothing in a recording studio?

Søren

[Evenreven]

Initials B.B. is one of my favourite albums ever. I like Melody Nelson too, but I prefer the fun aspect of BB. Great party album, actually. Comic Strip and Ford Mustang rock.

[dogbreath]

It's a shame that one of his greatest qualities - superb lyricist - isn't going to register with non-French speakers.

He wrote a late-sixties' hit for France Gall (sp? Zelil?) called "Sucette" (lollipop) which is, perhaps unsurprisingly, all about giving blowjobs - fairly explicitly. The great joke was that Ms. Gall, a particularly dim example of manufactured French popstarlet, wasn't in on the joke when she recorded it (nor, apparently, for some time after). So there was this innocent blonde la-la-la-ing a nagging piece of pop fluff all about oral sex on the TV ...

(Waits for corrections from Zelil ...)

[jazzfascist]

It's a shame that one of his greatest qualities - superb lyricist - isn't going to register with non-French speakers.

He wrote a late-sixties' hit for France Gall (sp? Zelil?) called "Sucette" (lollipop) which is, perhaps unsurprisingly, all about giving blowjobs - fairly explicitly. The great joke was that Ms. Gall, a particularly dim example of manufactured French popstarlet, wasn't in on the joke when she recorded it (nor, apparently, for some time after). So there was this innocent blonde la-la-la-ing a nagging piece of pop fluff all about oral sex on the TV ...

(Waits for corrections from Zelil ...)

Yeah, he sounds like a bad boy, I guess he liked to "dirty up" innocent looking young french starlets.

Søren

[dogbreath]

"I guess he liked to "dirty up" innocent looking young french starlets."

Yes, he was a manipulating and often cruel man. The Vanessa Paradis album he wrote lyrics for ("Variations ...") is a great album. She was more than a match for him, too, and far from the Lolita figure he thought he could control ... "Paradis," he said, "c'est l'enfer" (Paradis(e) is hell).

[jazzfascist]

"I guess he liked to "dirty up" innocent looking young french starlets."

Yes, he was a manipulating and often cruel man. The Vanessa Paradis album he wrote lyrics for ("Variations ...") is a great album. She was more than a match for him, too, and far from the Lolita figure he thought he could control ... "Paradis," he said, "c'est l'enfer" (Paradis(e) is hell).

'

It seems he also liked to stage himself in a "beauty and beast" setting, with Brigitte Bardot  and Jane Birkin, I don't know, maybe it's a classic female-male setting. As for Vanessa Paradis, she's very cute and funny, I saw her in a "Girl On The Bridge" with Daniel Auteuil, where it seems that the "beauty and beast" or "father/daugter" theme is replayed.

Søren

[I. Spaceman]

Serge a better Zappa than Zappa?

SG was a completely insular hedonist and serial drug abuser. Zappa deplored musicians getting out of their heads, and his drug of choice was tobacco. Zappa was a band-leader, always, Serge never. Zappa lived in the studio and touring on the road, Serge lived in bars and beds. Zappa was a studio perfectionist and virtuoso musician, Serge couldn't give a fucck.

If you want to measure them in terms of public outrage, I don't think either of them was perticularly "offensive" (whatever). Zappa shot his mouth off to his own semi-political agenda, Serge got drunk and swore. Neither exactly made the walls of the city shake with their revolutionary posture; Serge was loved for it, Zappa largely ignored (at least by the people he wanted to affect).

So I don't get the Zappa/Ganisbourg connection, is what I'm saying: worth taking further?

OK, how about this:

SERGE IS BETTER THAN ZAPPA. DEAL WITH IT.

[dogbreath]

Deal with it.

One of those phrases that just leaves me ... strangely unmoved. Deal with it yourself, thank you!

[I. Spaceman]

I don't give a sh*t, really, what you think. Deal with it.

[dogbreath]

Yawns, stretches ... watches fly crawling across wall.

[I. Spaceman]

You forgot *shits adult diaper*.

[dogbreath]

Sorry. My bad.

*merdas adult diaper*

[I. Spaceman]

HAHA!
Anyway, all I was doing was pointing out similarities in subject matter in Serge and Zappa.
Really, a closer parallel to Zappa is Jan Berry.

[dogbreath]

See my last response in the BFS thread, dewd ... I'm Audi!

[I. Spaceman]

*sigh*

deeeeeeeaaaaaalllllll wwwwiiiiiiiiiittttthhhhhhhhhhh iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiizzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.....

[Jason]

I'm really digging this thread, especially dogbreath's comments.

Got Serge's Vu de L'exterieur on now.

[I. Spaceman]

*sigh*

[Jason]

Now it's Evguenie Sokolov, the track with the fart noises.

[Jason]

Fuckin' BUMP!

Serge's thread is too good to hit the bottom of the forum.