Jeremy Allen
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Jawbone Press
Relax Baby Be Cool: The Artistry and Audacity of Serge Gainsbourg
Pages
304Format
PaperbackRelease date
February 2021Publisher
Jawbone PressWeight
1.15 lbSize
6 x 0.88 x 8.5 "
Why has Serge Gainsbourg crossed over to the English-speaking world when so many of his contemporaries have remained largely confined to the Francosphere? What is it about this unshaven provocateur that so appeals to us? And who was the real Serge Gainsbourg anyway? Was he the sensitive seducer and songwriting colossus of the 60s and 70s? Was he Lucien Ginsburg, the son of Russian Jewish refugees who had to wear a yellow star during the Nazi Occupation of Paris? Or was he Gainsbarre, the deplorable, attention-seeking drunk who shamelessly propositioned Whitney Houston on live TV?
Gainsbourg’s cult has only grown since his death in 1991, and Histoire de Melody Nelson is now regarded as a classic in France and internationally. In Relax Baby Be Cool, writer Jeremy Allen takes each studio album in turn while exploring themes pertinent to Gainsbourg’s life and music: jazz, performance, provocation, appropriation, postmodernism, aesthetics, metamorphosis, muses, film and TV, Surrealism, fame, and decline.
Gainsbourg’s cult has only grown since his death in 1991, and Histoire de Melody Nelson is now regarded as a classic in France and internationally. In Relax Baby Be Cool, writer Jeremy Allen takes each studio album in turn while exploring themes pertinent to Gainsbourg’s life and music: jazz, performance, provocation, appropriation, postmodernism, aesthetics, metamorphosis, muses, film and TV, Surrealism, fame, and decline.
