monsieur gainsbourg revisited: Take Two

Monsieur Gainsbourg Revisited: The Golden Ticket to One of the Best French Tributes

I remembered that it was a late night and I think it was raining outside. The music player was on shuffle; playing tunes from Zero 7 to Placebo to Cat Power and then to Radiohead and how I thought it was the best combination my iTunes ever concocted. Almost determined to find at least a band or a few artist with the same charisma and haunting appeal for the night, I stumbled onto the golden ticket no chocolate factory could ever offer. I discovered the sex Jane Birkin was so attracted to; I discovered the reason why the world loved/loathed the French; I was drawn to the sweetest sounding serenade; I uncovered the greatest album cover ever- I fell in love with Monsieur Gainsbourg Revisited.
The genius idea of Jean-Daniel Beauvallet, Christian Fevret and Timothée Verrecchia for Serge Gainsbourg’s fifteenth anniversary since his death in 2 March 1991 due to a heart attack. His tragic death left the world to remember him by his legacy of music and film in the French entertainment industry. Serge Gainsbourg is the name you’ll come across if you were probably searching for the best French artist of the century. He has created masterpieces fit to swoon any living person even with a heart made out of stone. It’s the whole French accent and persona! Famous for snagging Jane Birkin, the infamous name which is uttered by every woman in fashion and the most influential in fact – known by many by the name of the bag designed by Hermes.
When the idea to create the cover album was finally penned down, the list of artist to perform filled up almost instantly with plenty of positive responses from those who wanted to pay tribute to one of the most influential French artist of all time. Artists from all over the world ranging from Portishead to Beck to Massive Attack to The Sonic Youth, have claimed to be influenced by Gainsbourg by doing covers of his songs. However for the Revisited, the cast consisted of British and American artists from the past 10 years such as Marianne Faithful, Dani, Cat Power, Placebo, Franz Ferdinand, The Kills, Michael Stipe and even France’s Prime Minister’s wife Carla Bruni and Serge Gainsbourg muse, Jane Birkin.
A delicious cocktail of the best combination of the right ingredients, Monsieur Gainsbourg Revisited brings together a group of artist never imagined to be collaborating together. The album is not for the mainstream and ordinary as the album reeks eclecticism and abnormality. World renowned Boris Bergman and Paul Ives; known as the word-jugglers in putting the album together; were the geniuses in translating Gainsbourg’s French art into the universal language.
Monsieur Gainsbourg Revisited is an album of fusing together the talents of the past and today and creating something Serge Gainsbourg could truly be proud of. The album is first introduced to the haunting sounds of the collaboration of Franz Ferdinand and Jane Birkin with A Song For a Sorry Angel to tell the tale of someone who has fallen into the dark depths of love. Serge is never ashamed to sing about love; the dark and deeper side of the feeling in relation to suicide, blood and abandonment. The lyrics written and translated are almost in mirror precision to Serge Gainsbourg’s original which illustrates brutal honesty straight from the heart. Despite the complexity in the putting-together of the project, the cover album is an easy and light listen for those who are probably not an avid fan of the French music scene.
I suppose the best part of the entire album is not only the idea of listening to Placebo collaborating with Francois Hardy; it is also the deep and dark lyrics which illustrates the idea that anything can be translated across the borders. The haunting honestly in the music creates a certain state of mind which takes you to places you’ve never been before.