Histoire De Melody Nelson [Remastered] [Digipak] - Serge Gainsbourg

I imagine that most of you will not have heard any of Serge Gainsbourg’s music. Those that have, will have probably heard the relatively famous “Je t’aime” once or twice, and as a result have dismissed Gainsbourg as rubbish. A few weeks ago, I was in that very position, and so it was with much scepticism that I got this album, purely on the advice of a friend.

Firstly, this album sounds nothing like “Je ...
...wrote and recorded this album in England, with the help of a group of session musicians. It is built around guitar, drum and bass, but also has sweeping orchestrations. I found out, after buying this album, that it’s a great favourite of Jonny Greenwood from Radiohead. After listening to this it’s easy to see where the inspiration for Kid A’s “How to Disappear” orchestra part came from.

Opener “Melody” ... more

I imagine that most of you will not have heard any of Serge Gainsbourg’s music. Those that have, will have probably heard the relatively famous “Je t’aime” once or twice, and as a result have dismissed Gainsbourg as rubbish. A few weeks ago, I was in that very position, and so it was with much scepticism that I got this album, purely on the advice of a friend.

Firstly, this album sounds nothing like “Je t’aime”, or any of Gainsbourg’s trademark rubbish French pop. He wrote and recorded this album in England, with the help of a group of session musicians. It is built around guitar, drum and bass, but also has sweeping orchestrations. I found out, after buying this album, that it’s a great favourite of Jonny Greenwood from Radiohead. After listening to this it’s easy to see where the inspiration for Kid A’s “How to Disappear” orchestra part came from.

Opener “Melody” starts with a simple combination of guitar, bass and drums, with Gainsbourg narrating. In truth the narrating spoils it: all you want to do is listen to the music. The guitar and bass parts are amazing; they cover an astonishing variety of tones and textures, and they are both (cursed word!) “melodic”, and incredibly detailed. The song builds to a huge orchestral climax. But never on this album is the orchestra part obtrusive. It’s always light and floaty, soaring over the rest of the music, and compliments it perfectly.

“Ballade de Melody Nelson” follows. This is a beautiful track, with a lovely finger-picked acoustic guitar and a gorgeous chord progression. The same goes for “Valse de Melody”, a chiefly orchestra-led song.

“Ah! Melody” has Gainsbourg singing, admittedly tentatively, and although he is by no means a great singer, it’s a lovely melody, and he does sing it well. Again the guitar drum and bass are accompanied by a beautiful orchestration.

“L’hotel Particulier” is quite dark, with a prominent repeated bass line, and every verse finishes with an orchestra hook, which adds a bit of colour and light. There’s also a dirty-sounding piano riff.

The best track on the album, and certainly my favourite, is the penultimate “En Melody”. This is an instrumental, and features incredible guitar and bass parts. In fact, two guitars, a bass and drums are all that play on this track, apart from a short sample of a lady laughing. It’s brilliant, and sounds like nothing else, and it would be nice if some of the up and coming guitar bands plagiarised this sort of guitar music, rather than going for Radiohead and Jeff Buckley every time. This track is very hard to describe, but it’s easy to find on Napster, and I highly recommend that you download it and hear it for yourself. It’ll probably convert you and make you go out and buy this album. Rock played as if it were jazz.

The final track, “Cargo Culte”, has the same theme as opener “Melody”, but is shorter, and features a beautiful choir part at the end.

The album has very little in the way of singing, and almost all the vocal parts are narrating the story, which is, as the title says, the story of a girl called Melody Nelson. I have neglected to mention this before, as it may put a lot of people off what is a brilliant album.

This album tells the story of a man’s infatuation with a young girl of “fourteen winters and fifteen summers”. It is a frequently seedy, dirty and shocking story, but it is also very tragic. Gainsbourg narrates the part of the man, and Melody is narrated by Jane Birkin. I hope this doesn’t put you off the album because the music is sublime, and unless you speak French, you want have a clue what they’re talking about! I didn’t find out about it until I’d listened to the album a lot, and certainly, it doesn’t make a difference.

This is an extremely good album, verging on greatness. The music is, as I keep saying, incredibly good, and you wonder that, if Gainsbourg could write songs like these, why did he bother with all that “Je t’aime” nonsense. However, it is simply too short to be given 5 stars, clocking in at just over 28 minutes. Also, the singing isn’t exactly magnificent, and the narration is slightly annoying.

But for goodness sake, get over your prejudices against Mr Gainsbourg, and get this album. While he might have been a dirty old man, he sure made some incredible music. 

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