Album’s premise: A middle-aged man accidently hits a 15-year old named Melody Nelson with his Rolls-Royce. He takes her back to a hotel and seduces her, only for her to die in a plane crash soon after.
Serge Gainsbourg is French; so this kind of risqué story is accepted and expected in a French concept album. In fact, Serge Gainsbourg built his career as a seductive poet manwhore. His song “Je t’aime...Moi Non Plus” released in 1969 had co-singer Jane Birkin (girl on the cover Melody Nelson) faking an orgasm for the last minute of the song. “Je t’aime” was banned across Europe, went #1 in the UK and was aggressively denounced by the Vatican.
Gainsbourg had a long and fruitful career in his native France and across Europe. However his daughter, Charlotte Gainsbourg, is much better known in the English-speaking world (actress in AntiChrist, The Science of Sleep and her critically album IRM, written and produced by Beck) than her father who died in 1991.
But Histoire de Melody Nelson, originally released in 1971, is one of those few albums that are perfectly crafted from start to finish. Every backing vocal, the funk guitar, bassline, drumbeat, the strings –everything is where it should be at all times. I tend to see this vinyl a lot in hip-hop orientated music shops and it’s easy to see why; the slick production values of Jean-Claude Vannier provide ample opportunities for sampling.
The instrumentals are like stained-glass in a medieval cathedral. Stained-glass was used to tell the stories of the Bible to the illiterate peasant masses. And like the stained-glass, the instrumental flourishes and female choir in Melody Nelson move the story along for Anglophone ears, making it more accessible.
It's still an odd album though; I can't imagine listening to this while driving in your car or hanging out with friends. -L.M Harrison
The official video for the opening track "Melody":
Serge Gainsbourg - Melody by challenges-auto
Below: The closing track "Cargo Culte." [Disclaimer: I did not make the video].
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