Artist: Serge Gainsbourg
Album: L'histoire de Melody Nelson
Released: 1971
Label: Phillips Records
Genre: French pop
Purchase date: 04 May 2010
Source: Amazon
Released: 1971
Label: Phillips Records
Genre: French pop
Purchase date: 04 May 2010
Source: Amazon
Format: MP3 files
This is a classic album that I'd never encountered until this last winter. The guys on Sound Opinions interviewed Charlotte Gainsbourg, the Anglo-French actress and singer about her 2009 album IRM, and her role in that year's psychological horror film Antichrist. Part of the interview turned to her father Serge Gainsbourg, and they played a couple of excerpts of L'histoire de Melody Nelson in the background. From the moment I heard the slow-burning, blusey riff with Serge's growling yet unctuous sing-song spoken French, I knew that I had to get my hands on this album. Amazon listed it as a $5 download a few months later, and I bought it. The whole ablum tells a single story in songs: The protagonist narrates (in French) of how he accidentally ran his Rolls Royce into a 14-year-old American girl on her bicycle, then how he took her back to his house to tend her injuries, and how the two then had a torrid affair. The Lolita-like story is creepy enough, but Gainsbourg's deadpan delivery over a simple-yet-searing music line grabs your collar and pulls you in. This is a very disturbing story, but the music is trés cool.
Rating: A-
Not available on eMusic at this time.
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