Monsieur Gainsbourg: Revisited

I just received this today and actually got the double LP instead of the cd. When typing in the upc code it comes up as a cd but is actually the double lp. Anyway enough of that. This is such wonderful music all of the tributes are spot on. Always nice to hear other people do their own version of something so beautiful. Check it out. If you like gainsbourg you will appreciate this.

Just picked this up in a used CD store, mostly for the awesome tackiness of the cover photo. Amazingly, the music inside is not only NOT tacky, it's just plain awesome. And totally worth quite a bit more than the seven bucks I spent. I feel lucky today...

Serge Gainsbourg is a force of originality that was forged by the same fires that all the best art from Post World War 2 Eras, I say this because of how hard it is for me a 20 year old, kid from Port Angeles, Washington, United States, North America, living in 2008.
The music Serge wrote, was simply different, and I won't bother to look up the details on his story, and the story, and the people and things that surrounded him. I wish I had the time, patience or a solid brain to really explain to you, not to buy this album of tributes, or any album of serge's. Cause I don't know what exactly would persuade you. The things that persuade me are much different in my lonely room, at 4:30 AM, feeling underconfident about the recent days memories of what people are like and what they truly meant, and quick fears will jump in about my heart and a potential cardiac arrest, drug addiction, so much that unsettles, my experience of the moment of now, which could be anything that anyone besides me,
and then when I turn it on, and let my body move, I am filled with a purity of the body, the loins, a pleasure which I don't want to have to justify with philosophy, or look over future consequences of being without satisfactions longer than a song, because
I feel the moment of true shared bliss in a superficial wink of the eye,

Since it was released in 2005, this tribute CD has been on regular rotation on my iPod. Serge Gainsbourg (1928-1991) was a controversial, brilliant, and eccentric French poet, singer-songwriter, actor and director. "He was our Baudelaire, our Apollinaire . . . He elevated the song to the level of art," French President François Mitterrand said of Gainsbourg. As shown by this compilation disc of English-language updated covers (drawn mostly from the late 1950s and early 1960s), Gainsbourg's music is difficult to categorize. Usually erotic, it is a progressive fusion of jazz, ballads, mambo, lounge, reggae, pop (in all varieties), disco, calypso, Africana, bossa nova, and rock and roll. Gainsbourg's former wife, Jane Birkin, lends her vocals to the first track, and Franz Ferdinand, Cat Power, Portishead, Michael Stipe, Marianne Faithful, and Carla Burni add their talents. The complete album setlist includes:

1. A Song For Sorry Angel (Sorry Angel) - Franz Ferdinand & Jane Birkin
2. I Love You (Me Either) - Cat Power & Karen Elson
3. I Just Came To Tell You That I'm Going - Jarvis Cocker & Kid Loco
4. Requiem For Anna - Portishead
5. Requiem For A Jerk - Faultline, Brian Molko & Francoise Hardy
6. L'Hotel - Michael Stipe
7. Au Revour Emmanuelle - Tricky
8. Lola R. For Ever - Marianne Faithful & Sly & Robbie
9. Boomerang 2005 - Gonzales, Feist & Dani
10. Boy Toy - Mar Almond & Trash Palace
11. The Ballad Of Melody Nelson - Placebo
12. Just A Man With A Job - The Rakes
13. I Call It Art - The Kills
14. Those Little Things - Carla Burni
15. The Ballad Of Bonnie And Clyde - James Iha
16. Angel's Fall - Nathan Larson

G. Merritt

What a treat to have yet another set of Gainsbourg material translated and performed by le potage du jour. Gainsbourg still challenges and transforms anyone who touches his work, as he did with his audience. You've never heard Cat Power, Michael Stipe and Marianne Faithfull like this. Everything becomes magnified: the song, the artist, monsieur Gainsbourg lui-meme. Wow - c'est si bon.. Also check out the Gainsbourg installment of the Tzadik series 'Great Jewish Music' (1997). You will enjoy both tributes if you're familiar enough with the originals.