Serge Gainsbourg — Histoire De Melody Nelson

The raw-voiced Serge Gainsbourg may have been one ugly fuck, but he sure made the ladies swoon whenever he lit up a Gitane and sang.

This reissue of 1971's Histoire De Melody Nelson is Gainsbourg's attempt at a concept album. It's more in line with Marvin Gaye's What's Going On than the traditional psychedelic template of The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Zombies' Odessey And Oracle or the Bee Gees' Odessa. Like What's Going On, the focal point here is the singular, ubiquitous character: Melody Nelson.

The album cover pretty much spells out its concept — a topless Lolita hugging a teddy bear. We don't need to suffer through five years of failing French grades to know where Gainsbourg's mind is at throughout the album. Also like Gaye's environmental opus, there's a sense that the album is one long composition broken into seven parts.

The album tastefully meanders through many different musical styles, from the baroque brass accompaniment on "Ah! Melody" to the surging strings and R&B guitars backing Gainsbourg's brilliantly creepy yet entrancing vocals on "Hotel Particulier." There's even some funky rock 'n' roll guitar that drives the instrumental "En Melody," which features sexy Yoko Ono-like giggles and yelps courtesy of then-girlfriend Jane Birkin, whose presence and frequent whispering of Melody Nelson's name throughout the album adds an audio-erotic tension throughout.

Though the record seems focused on the titular character, it's really the narrator's introspective obsession that's the focus. Histoire De Melody Nelson begins and ends with two complex and similar opuses that bookend this masterpiece. Opener "Melody" features Gainsbourg's raspy sing-speak backed by fuzzy guitars, a duck-walk bass line and lush, string-laden orchestration. It ends with the lengthy "Cargo Culte," which revisits the same guitar strings and is mixed with Gainsbourg's haunting vocals spinning a tragic tale of death and lost love.

It all makes for a fascinating, brilliant journey.

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