The Man Who Lived His Life As A Scandal

This is an old review I written for a publication when I was an undergraduate. So bear with the immaturity and the general low quality of the writing......
==========================================================================

“Man created God. The inverse remains to be proven.” --- Serge Gainsbourg

One of the drawbacks of being an ex-British colony is the cultural influence. Instead of the clearly superior Spanish or Italian soccer league, we are crazy over the English Premier League where passion is a poor substitute for lousy skills. Instead of cool European films, we have trashy Hollywood movies, mainly because of the language. No, we don’t drink red wine that is considered beneficial to health but instead subscribe to beer, which tastes like piss. And to top it all, we are told that the Beatles was the greatest band alive and few, if any, have heard of Serge Gainsbourg.

Gainsbourg to French music is just like what Steven Spielberg is to American movies multiplied by one million times, albeit a much controversial, provocative and lecherous version. His range of music is astonishingly wide, from jazz influenced songs in his early career to the bubblegum pop of the French Ye-Ye girls genre, from the heavily rock influenced style in the late 1960s to the reggae music in the 1970s, from the numerous movie soundtracks he wrote and produced throughout his career to rap music in the 1980s. Many influential artists nowadays, which includes Luna, Luscious Jackson, Yo La Tengo, Stereolab, Luna and Mick Harvey cite him as their influences.

Despite his wide variety of music, there is one common thread that runs through them, and that is the ability to create controversy. Perhaps the best-known and most cited example is the song “Je T'Aime...Moi Non Plus”, which he duet with his wife Jane Birkin. Even if you know nuts about French, the heavy breathing and sensual moans that accompany the vocals leaves little to imagination. When released in 1969 (fittingly), it created uproar all across Europe. The single was banned in Sweden, Spain, Brazil, and Britain. The Vatican condemned and implored the Italian government to banish it. Gainsbourg instantly became a cult figure in the European music scene.

Of course, this is not the only scandal in Gainsbourg career. “For me provocation is oxygen,” so said Gainsbourg once, and he lived true to his quote. He has affairs with countless women, with includes French sex icon Bridgett Bardot. He reconfigured the French national anthem “La Marseillaise” to a reggae beat, an act that drew protests from politicians and demonstrations by war veterans. During live TV interviews, he burnt a 500 francs note in front of national TV, and on another occasion, proclaimed to Whitney Houston, “I wanna f**k you.” In the 80s, he dressed up as a drag for Love On The Beat, an album that discusses homosexuality and incest. In 1985, he appeared on the music video for one of his songs “Lemon Incest” with his young daughter-Charlotte Gainsbourg-half naked in bed.

Gainsbourg died of a heart attack on March 2, 1991, and as a fitting tribute to the man who epitomise French music for the last half a century, the French government warranted a day of national mourning. “I’ve succeeded in everything but my life,” Gainsbourg once said depreciatingly of himself. However, if you ever heard his music, you would think how wrong he was to have said that.