5:55 [ENHANCED]

Charlotte Gainsbourg

Product Details

• Audio CD (April 24, 2007)
• Original Release Date: April 24, 2007
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Enhanced
• Label: Vice Records
• ASIN: B000NQR7UC
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #29,094 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

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  Music > Pop > Euro Pop > French Pop

Editorial Reviews

From Amazon.co.uk Review
Even without Charlotte Gainsbourg's musical heritage, the prospect of an album written and performed by Air, with lyrics by Jarvis Cocker (ex-Pulp) and Neil Hannon (The Divine Comedy) would be enough to entice most sensible music fans. But as a combination, 5.55 is far better than probably even the participants imagined it would be.

The combination of Air's trademark glide complements Gainsbourg's voice (which is less singing and more melodic, breathy recitation), to the point where, had the lyrical input been less than stellar, this could easily have sent the listener to sleep. Instead, the emotional detachment in Gainsbourg's delivery acts as a foil to the passion presented in the lyrics. For their part, Cocker and Hannon excel with their trademark darkly humourous input- the passenger on a doomed flight in "AF407105", the surgery/seduction metaphor in "The Operation", or the venomous "Jamais" being particular standouts.

Even though 5.55 bears all the hallmarks of its creators (if so inclined, one could see this as a new Air album, or imagine Cocker or Hannon singing the lyrics), it's even more than the sum of its parts and is almost certainly one of the best albums you'll hear in 2006 or beyond. --Thom Allott

Product Description
International movie star, fashion icon, and music royalty (daughter of French pop icon Serge Gainsbourg) makes her US debut. Already platinum in France with worldwide sales of over 500,000. The US CD release includes two previously unavailable bonus tracks, two music videos, and a video interview with Charlotte. Music by Air, lyrics by Jarvis Cocker and The Divine Comedy's Neil Hannon, and produced by Nigel Godrich (Radiohead, Beck).

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Atmospheric., June 7, 2008

By	starschaser (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews

Her mother Jane Birkin added her breathy, orgasmic tones to her father Serge Gainsbourg's "Je T'Aime... Moi Non Plus".
And the family resemblances are unavoidable in Charlotte's album, that voice hesitant, barely a whisper at times, but shimmering with sexiness.
What saves this album from being a lot of Gallic mumblings bound up in its own self-importance is the heavweight help the family name commanded.
The result of Gainsbourg's meeting with Nicolas Godin, one half of French electronica duo Air, at a Radiohead concert in Paris, "5:55", is a carefully crafted gem.
Charlotte's voice is as slight and breathy as her mother's, but lyrics by Jarvis Cocker and the Divine Comedy's Neil Hannon create a hazy, Gauloise-inflected intimacy against full, string-rich arrangements by producer Nigel Godrich, those Parisian maestros of wafting electronica "Air" are on board, as is "Radiohead" producer Nigel Godrich and Nigerian percussionist Tony Allen, lauded by Brian Eno as "the greatest musician on the planet".
The title track "5:55" and the first single "The Songs That We Sing stand out", the former haunting and piano-led, the latter carrying an infectiously boisterous chorus.
At times Charlotte's thin voice and finishing-school vowels can grate, but the album as a whole is emotive, rewarding and compelling - a world away from feather-strewn beds and dodgy filial duets.
We get the mildly erotic, such as the teasing "Beauty Mark", and we get something like beat poetry in "AF607105", with its stark lines about air travel.
There's also big helpings of the kind of wistful balladeering only the French can muster.

4 * * * * and 1/2.

The Originals
Jane Birkin et Serge Gainsbourg
Songs That We Sing
L'Effrontee
Golden Door

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Divine Pulp Air Songs That We Sing, May 3, 2009

By	Richard Hine - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: 5:55 (MP3 Download)

Teaming up with the people who brought you The Divine Comedy, Pulp and Air, Charlotte Gainsbourg delivers a shimmery collection of songs, whispered confessions and savage observations. The chimy instrumentation surrounds and enhances Gainsbourg's breathy vocals, which are sung/spoken in her delightfully "Frenglish" accent. Title track "5:55" captures that sleepless time when it's "too late to end it now, too early to start again." Bouncy single "The Songs That We Sing" sounds cheerful, but it still makes little girls "scream and run away." The "Little Monsters" who "rule the world" are scary enough (they get even bigger and scarier on Jarvis's own "Fat Children"). The theme of staying up all night returns in several places, most notably when love goes under the knife in "The Operation." It's a delicate procedure, but Gainsbourg's "prepared to work throughout the night." This is easy listening with a sharp edge.

5.0 out of 5 stars quite Nicoesque, October 30, 2008

By	Arturo DiGenero - See all my reviews

Gainsbourg's untutored voice and weary, gallicized Brit-English remind me of nothing so much as Nico on her oddball classics of the early 70s, as does the combination of dark emotion over deceptively lush arrangements. The black humour, though, is a reminder that she's her father's daughter, even if she didn't write the lyrics herself (who could possibly care?).

Certainly the only album on which I've ever heard the wonderfully horrible word "abbatoir".