Although it's messing with release chronology the next thing is the compilation Du Jazz dans le Ravin (1996) which covers the early years of Gainsbourg's output, from 1958-1964, effectively covering the entire first phase of his work. Again, this is all pleasing to listen to, there's nothing immediately recognisable as confrontational in the sound of the calm light jazz guitar and piano (although, again, Gainsbourg twists and turns the jazz in all kinds of delicate ways to emphasise whatever points he is making in each song) and there are some fantastic songs here. Bearing in mind that Gainsbourg was churning songs out, mostly for other performers, during this period it's a remarkably high quality of material throughout that he released in the late 50's and early 60's. That kind of quality control would desert him when he moved into the more directly provocative next stages of his work, and although it's later stuff that's much more famous there are still some big and influential numbers on these early records ('Intoxicated Man' set out the stall for much of what was to follow thematically, 'Chez Les Ye-Ye' pretty much created and defined the Ye-Ye style which ruled French pop for years, and 'Le Poinconneur des Lilas' which became something of an early calling card for many French performers). It's also worth noting that although notoriety would overtake the work, Gainsbourg was incredibly forward thinking, employing all kinds of rhythms and styles, particularly African, into his jazz-based songs in the early 1960's.
Gainsbourg's affair with Brigitte Bardot led to our next two albums, and in some ways to the next stage of his career. I suspect that his exposure through Bardot to a more commercial, more multi-media and more exploitative world led to him upping the ante with regard to both the bitter smartness of his lyrics and his overall determination to shock. 1968's Initials B.B. is also Gainsbourg's consolidation of a move away from jazz and into a wider range of styles, from hyper-pop to slippery, gloomy rock. There's a lot of US themed material and Gainsbourg's hungry fascination with the influence of that culture for good and ill is played out on 'Comic Strip', 'Ford Mustang' and 'Bonnie & Clyde'. The opening title track is a superb statement-making thudding piano, drums and sawing strings piece with Serge utilising his soon-to-be trademark spoken, murmured and whispered vocals and 'Bonnie & Clyde' is a great, wobbly bit of gloomy pop, sinister and fun at once, with Gainsbourg and Bardot taking the parts of the outlaws and accompanied by a fluid and funky bassline and vocal whoops. There's some great fuzzed up rock guitar in 'Black and White' and 'Qui est "in", Que est "Out"' and there are latent hints of the reggae influence that would become prominent in his work much later (closer 'Marilu' was massively reggaed on a later re-recording). As good as the earlier jazz stuff was it relied very heavily on Serge's verbal mastery, and Initials B.B. shifts the balance a bit and as an album it's much more varied and much more exciting.
Initials B.B. was followed by what appears to be a collaborative album but in fact is not, 1968's Bonnie & Clyde. The title track is pretty much the only actual duet and that's taken from the previous album anyway, and only two or three of the rest of the tunes were made by the pair, with the rest being stuff they recorded separately. Bearing in mind that a lot of this material had appeared on Initials B.B. it's difficult to really understand why Bonnie & Clyde was released. Nonetheless it's a great album, with Gainsbourg continuing to indulge his love/hate relationship with American culture to the max. There's another appearance for the sarcastic 'Comic Strip' as well as the title track of course, but the album also has 'Bubblegum' (was the sarcasm hiding a desire by Gainsbourg for success in the States I wonder), as well as the superb 'Pauvre Lola', a rollicking bit of pop music, and one of Gainsbourg's greatest songs. There are some great re-recordings of 'Intoxicated Man' with the jazz taken out and an even more jazzed, string-laden 'La Javanaise'. The Bardot only stuff is unsurprisingly the weakest, but only because she was such a second-rate performer, the songs themselves are quality Serge.
And so we come to the motherlode, the core of Gainsbourg's career, the touchstone, Histoire de Melody Nelson (1971). How to describe a masterpiece? One of the biggest problems with discussing Melody Nelson is that Gainsbourg made it as a concept album as thematically and lyrically unpalateable as possible, with its storyline essentially being that 43 year old Serge Gainsbourg accidentally runs down a teenage hottie in his Rolls-Royce, takes her home and, well, you know, they have a time of it. It's pretty hard to handle, and yet, this is still unquestionably one of the greatest albums ever made. In terms of its structure, its instrumentation and its mood it's absolutely light years ahead of its time, with funk bass and slicing guitars tinnily chopping away beneath the lushest possible string arrangements, while Serge murmurs his filthily seductive way over it all. There are stabs and jabs of brass and tumbling piano, but they disappear back into the mist of the strings as quickly as they appear, and the whole thing is an absolutely towering achievement of arrangement, for which most likely all the props really need to go to Jean-Claude Vannier who oversaw all of the orchestral recording. Honestly, I get all caught up with myself and tongue-tied trying to explain just how superb Melody Nelson is musically speaking, it's a truly monumental piece of mind-bendingly original and influential work. It's framed by two 7-minute long pieces taken from the same session of woozily seductive orchestration to set out the story, with low-key bass and guitar understatedly driving the strings with Serge giving us the outline (the second of which also has a spectral vocal group underpinning the music). The five short pieces in between are alternately an absurdly lush two-minute ballad ('Ballade de Melody'), a charming little waltz ('Valse de Melody'), a tiny folky piece with added trumpet ('Ah! Melody'), a sleazily funky chop show ('L'Hotel Patrticulier'), and a massively funky guitar workout ('En Melody', complete with daft giggling). Considering that the subject matter (which turns out to be not quite the simple filth-out that it first appears) was typically Serge-ian in its louche pretence at not caring whether it shocks an audience or not (while trying desperately to do so of course), you can put that to one side and just dig one of the most extraordinary records ever made. (I've got the 40th anniversary edition which has a bunch of extras, including a documentary about the making of the album (criminally it doesn't include the album length film that Gainsbourg and Birkin made at the time, but I've linked that through the album cover below) and a selection of alternate versions which are very similar to the originals, slightly longer in some cases and with some studio talk, and two versions of one extra not very good track that was understandably cut from the album)
It's quite tough to get hold of Serge's next album, another concept piece this time about farting and poo, so we have to move directly on to 1975's controversy baiting Rock Around the Bunker. Yes, it's a third concept album in a row and this time round it's a light-hearted comedic romp about Hitler's last days. One can only assume that Serge was disappointed that he hadn't created enough of a storm by this point and was going all out to provoke. Rock Around the Bunker kicks off with a jaunty squealing slide guitar and lively backing singer rock workout, 'Nazi Rock', and it makes hay with the idea that you can't discuss any of this in anything other than sombre tones. While Mel Brooks may have got there first with the idea that you can use the Second World War as a source for comedy, particularly as a way of neutralising the insidious long-term impact of oppression, even he hadn't gone as far as Serge does on Rock Around the Bunker to make absurdist fun of it all. As one bar-room rumble or bounce along pub-rock song goes by, with lyrics about Eva Braun's personal taste and the final solution, you find yourself wondering why it's such silly fun when it should be beyond horrifying. I think the answer is that Serge didn't do anything for its own sake and although he liked to play the drunken provocateur I think the truth was that he was an extraordinarily clever and thoughtful man. All the same you'll probably have trouble listening to 'Smoke Gets In Your Eyes' in the same way again.
The last of the 70's concept albums was 1976's L'Homme a Tete de Chou, which tells the story of a man who becomes obsessed with a hairdresser (the Marilou character who crops up often in Gainsbourg songs), goes totally bonkers and beats her to death with a fire extinguisher and ends up in an asylum, convinced that his head has turned into a cabbage. Overall the album is much closer to Melody Nelson than Rock Around the Bunker, being composed of louche, funky workouts with some string arrangements, but it's less successful than Melody Nelson and much less focussed (although it's considerably better than Rock Around the Bunker). All kinds of styles are used in the course of the album and it feels disjointed and a bit unstructured. There's cheesy reggae-lite, pop rock, jazz-funk and throughout it all there's Serge himself delivering his seedy tale in his now obligatory spoken delivery (by this point the endless booze and fags had completely knackered his already uneasy singing voice). It's a great album really, but it lacks Melody Nelson's towering, epic ambition and the smaller frame feels constricted rather than tight.
And finally for today, but not quite for Serge, we have the French compilation Master Serie, Vol.2 (1988), which covers material from 1964-1984, but the majority of which is post 1979. I picked this up on cassette when we were on a holiday in France when I was about 15 and my mum and dad were mystified as to why I would want anything by Serge Gainsbourg, but that's because they only knew, like most people then, about the silly 'Je t'aime...Moi non Plus' single and not that he was a total genius. Anyway, because most of the stuff on Master Serie, Vol.2 is from late in his career it certainly didn't convince them of anything other than that he wasn't up to much. However, it has got 'New York USA' from 1964 which is an astonishing demonstration of how outward looking and forward thinking he was, with its African drumming and backing vocals which make Paul Simon's attempt decades later look like embarrassing tokenism and it also has 1968's 'Requiem Pour Un C..' which has a fantastic rolling rhythm section, which was sampled wholesale for the Folk Implosion's 'Serge'. The six songs from 1979's Aux Armes et Caetera and 1981's Mauvaises Nouvelles des Etoiles are heavy reggae, recorded in Kingston with some top-flight Jamaican session musicians and it's hard to know exactly what prompted him to try it, but inexplicably it actually works. There are also three songs from 1984's Love on the Beat, another loose concept album about rent boys, and as an album it's peculiar enough without the concept, being a slick synth-heavy, lecherous pop record, which sadly doesn't work at all.
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