French Music Seen From Abroad February 2010

Gainsbourg on all fronts

Paris 

25/02/2010 - 

The Gainsbourg family are hard to escape this spring: Charlotte’s album is coming out in the United States, where her Mum recently gave a series of concerts. At the same time, the biopic of Serge’s life looks set to dominate European cinemas.

Charlotte Gainsbourg, daughter of Serge, is starting to get a name for herself in America. While her recent film Antichrist (by Danish director Lars Von Trier) created controversy a few months ago, she is now back in the news as a singer. Released in late 2009, her album  IRM (Because/Warner) is already a big success in Europe – no. 4 in the hit parade in France, no. 8 in Belgium, no. 13 in Greece, No. 28 in Switzerland, no. 39 in Denmark, no. 46 in Sweden, and no. 62 in the UK. In 2010, IRM got releases in Japan (no. 80) and the United States (no. 69). " She recorded her latest album, 'IRM,' her first working with Beck as producer, in Los Angeles while simultaneously filming the Lars Von Trier picture 'Antichrist' in Germany." (Spinner, United States, 19/2). " Twenty years passed between the creation of her first and second albums [actually her third], and she rarely performs live. But then, she's never had to make music in order to eat," notes the L.A. Weekly (United States, 28/1). "With music I want to refer to him [her father], but I want to find my own path," she explains in an interview with Time (United States, 1/2).

Meanwhile, the women’s pages of The Times (UK, 20/2) wonders how her mother Jane Birkin manages to "look cool at 63". It’s easy: keep working on a multitude of projects and retain your sense of wonder and faith in yourself. In early February, Jane Birkin was in the United States singing "songs from her most recent album, Enfants d'hiver, as well as old favorites from her days with Gainsbourg." (City Guide New York, February 2010). In addition to her two New York concerts, she also performed in Washington, where she delighted "a full house of 300 blizzard-braving fans at the French Embassy on Tuesday night." (Washington Post, 11/2). The evening was " Birkin's first-ever visit to Washington on a tour."

Gainsbourg, vie héroïque, the biopic of the life of Serge Gainsbourg (1928-1991), has yet to open in the States. But in France, it has " played on 511 screens and generated almost $4 million," notes Screendaily.com, a movie industry web portal (28/1). "The French production opens in Belgium this weekend [30 January], with further releases in Russia (March 18), Netherlands (April 15) and Germany (July 15)." For La Dernière Heure (Belgium, 2/2), "it’s been a long time since the French have been behind such an ambitious project. Retracing the life of Serge Gainsbourg in a comic book (a superb work published by Dargaud) and the cinema – two media that he loved even more than singing – is an original and daring approach, considering all the dangers of falling into caricature." "Known abroad chiefly for the steamy sex-ballad Je T'aime, Moi Non Plus, Gainsbourg has an almost mythic status in France", notes the BBC website (28/1). "Sfar says he did not want to write a standard biopic," preferring to focus on several key events of the singer’s life: "the childhood in Nazi-occupied Paris; the musical awakening in the 50s; the love-affairs with Brigitte Bardot and Birkin." Love it or loathe it, Joann Sfar’s film shares one thing at least with its subject: it’s impossible to feel indifferent towards it.

Directly or indirectly, Gainsbourg has inspired a panoply of young artists, including perhaps Nouvelle Vague. This French group was recently on a promotional tour of the United States for its third album entitled… wait for it… 3, released last year in France by PIAS. The duo "still does Franco-Brazilian lounge arrangements of new wave tunes, replacing punky clamor with acoustic guitar and gentle syncopation." (Washington Post, United States, 18/2). "Some of the tracks from the album "3" are the Sex Pistols' "God Save the Queen," the Psychedelic Furs' "Heaven" and Magazine's "Parade," notes the San Jose Mercury News (United States, 4/2). Nouvelle Vague, whose first two albums have sold "well over a half a million copies worldwide," road-tested their new songs in early 2010 on a mini-tour of North America, taking in Washington, Salt Lake City, Santa Cruz, San Francisco and New Orleans.

Gilles  Rio

Translation : Hugo  Wilcken