Customer Reviews

Histoire De Melody Nelson

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I don't speak or understand the French language, I stopped drinking alcohol 20 years ago and don't approve of smoking BUT Serge Gainsbourg (almost as famous for his boozing and smoking as his music) is one of my great heroes. I love his music so much I got a tattoo of his face on my arm ...and for me Histoire de Melody Nelson is his finest 28 minutes. It's mystical, sexy, seductive, dirty and even a bit vulgar. A concept album about doomed love for an English teenage girl, played by his greatest muse and partner Jane Birkin on the record and the glorious record cover. Birkin stands teasing in just blue jeans clutching a cuddly monkey to her [chest]. Jane told me that she placed this monkey in Gainsbourg's coffin with him when he died. The beautiful iconic cover would be worth the price of admission alone but the music is even more mesmerising. During the 60s and still in in 1971 when this album was originally released most people were content to make variations on a theme created by The Beatles, Bob Dylan and Brian Wilson... but what Serge offered, his brand of pop, had a completely different and individual voice. The gophic bookend tracks of the album Melody and Cargo Culte sound extraordinarily modern even today. There is great tenderness and melancholy in Ballade de Melody Nelson and Ah! Melody. Witness the sound of Jane Birkin laughing hysterically over the grooviest of 70s psych-grooves on En Melody. Birkin was actually being tickled by her brother Andrew while Serge had a tape running on record under her bed. Don't be put off by the short running time, length doesn't matter, it's what you do with it that counts.
Histoire de Melody Nelson is ultra cool, ultra sexy and ultra modern music.
Je T'aime, Gainsbourg.

Gainsbourg was an artist who experimented with all styles of music. Through his career, he put together a great number of fantastic singles. But this album is his great masterpiece.

There aren't any megahits. The most well known tracks: 'Ballade de Melody Nelson' and 'Ah, Melody' are first rate songs, but it's absolutely criminal to separate them from the rest of the album.

Clocking in at just under 30 minutes, "Histoire de Melody Nelson" flows as one poignant tale of Melody Nelson. The music itself was far ahead of it's time; listen to these songs and then listen to Air and Beck. While the great orchestrations and melodies should be enough to sate the appetite of many non-francophone listeners, it is truly the lyrics that lift this album to timeless stature. Gainsborg was a poet to French song the way Dylan is to American song. This album is his finest hour, not to be missed by anyone interested in greatness in popular music.

Add my praise to the many comments here. This has GOT to be the coolest album ever recorded. It was so ahead of its time its not even funny. Gainsbourg is a superb artist, anything you can find of his is worth listening to, but Melody Nelson is his masterpiece. Its by turns funky, haunting, leering, dirty and beautiful beyond description. The coolness factor on this one is sky high. J'taime ce des disques, son merveilleux!!!

Ahh the joy's of the mighty Serge... Unless you've had your head under a rock you've probably been hearing high praise for this record for some time now... hushed wispers of its legendary weirdness... well the word on the street is right my friends.. this is an incredible record by any stretch of the imagination. First up this is basically Serges most "rock" oriented record.. but let me clarify that by saying Serge's take on "rock" is a tweaked out as his take on pretty much everything in life ... so the sound is very weird.. very sparse .. very repetitive.. but at the same time huge and massive (one of the greatest bass tones ever recorded.. and some of the craziest funky drummin' ever) ... then there's the strings which literally sound as if they're bein beamed in from another record somewhere else.. out of this world! ... yeah its as good as everything you've heard about it... and if you've been dissipointed or hesistant to get into Serge I point you in this lil beauty's direction otherwise your missing out on one of the greatest records of all time...

The lazy bassline which bleeds through the speakers to open the album suggest the sophisticated leachery which is to follow. This, of course, is Serge Gainsbourg, the man who, more than anyone else in the music industry, or any industry for that matter, epitomised the shameless romanticism for which the French are known. That he was in fact a Russain Jew by birth is testament to the contradictory nature of this man. Anyway, "Melody", the first track, concerns his first encounter with the eponymous Sunderland-born(!) heroine, and is utterly gorgeous at that. Serge's intimate whisper of a vocal seems to be the loudest thing here, booming over the spare arrangment of guitar, bass and drums, whose graceful funk is elegant while also suggesting the dubious intentions of the singer towards Melody. The addition of the dramatic strings throughout this track is luxuriant and erotic and is possibly one of the greatsest use of a string section in the histroy of rock music: economical, dramatic and emtional. The track is a masterpiece, and worth the price alone. But, as the title suggests, this album is a story, and so it unfolds. The structure of the album is therefore very important. This is why Serge's decision to bookend the album with what are by far and away the longest and also mutually very similar tracks, has the emotional impact it does have. As previous reviewers have noted, this is the story of an old French sleazeball (could it be Serge, I wonder?) in a chance encounter with a young (very young) English girl (Melody). He proceeds to seduce this girl and take her to his special hotel room to have his way with her, before she flies back to England, only for the plane to crash on the way, leaving Melody dead. So a romantic story then, of course with Serge's own twisted sense of humour. The unravelling of this tale is matched by equally moody music. Following "Melody", the next series of tracks (from "Ballade de Melody Nelson" to "En Melody") are much shorter and cover ground from languid, alluring torch song ("Ballade...") through sweet and elegant waltz ("Valse de Melody") to abrasive, jittery funk, complete with Jane Birkin (Serge's foil for this concept album) squeeling over the top. At a mere half an hour in length, the most startling achievement is the amount of emtoinal ground covered. Each track is coherent with the previous and suggests what is to come in the following track, allowing each stage of Serge's tale to be spun eloquently without overstaying its welcome. The final track ("Cargo Culte") sees Sergs lamenting the passing away of his love as he appeals to the heavens, much in the style of the Papuan Cargo Cultists, who pray to the sky for planes to crash in the jungle depositing bounty on the ground for their pillaging. It is fundamentally a retake of the opening track, albeit with different lyrics. The death of Melody puts Serge in a reflective mood, thinking back to the bliss of their first encounter, hence the similarity. Yet the slightly de-tuned guitars and less measured percussion shed light on the pain and sorrow he is experiencing. The gorgeous strings of the first track, however, are replaced by an ominous, funereal choir and rattling percussion, perfectly evoking the the crashing metal of the aeroplane, before reaching its bombastic, rock-opera-style climax in the dying seconds. Listening to this in hindsight, one is struck by how modern this album sounds. The steady foundation of bass throughout presaged the music of Beck, Beta Band, Stone Roses and even electronic artists such as DJ Shadow and Tricky. I can only imagine how daring and outrageous this would have sounded back in the early 70s. Yet here it is today, sounding as fresh, moving and sexy as ever, the sound so unquie, it is doubtful that it will ever grow dated. This is a worthy addition to any collection, which will be enjoyed for years by any discerning owner. I have seen many people comment on the brevity of this album, which is rather missing the point, I feel; 28 minutes is simply how long it takes to tell this story, get this point across, and when the music itself is so good anyway, it seems a moot point. Buy, enjoy, learn some French. Your life will be better for it.
P.S. If you need proof as to the influence of this album, get hold of "Sea Change" by Beck, and put on "Paper Tiger". It is either the most shameless example of artistic pilfering I have ever heard, or a wonderful tribute to a great piece of music. I'm going with both.

Many reviews tell you how cool this record is...And believe me, if you have any curiousity, this record's no waste of time. What alot of reviews haven't told you is what the album's about lyrically.

For those who don't speak french,the music's reason enough. The downside to that ofcourse, is that you miss out on the wicked wit of the lyrics. Gainsbourg didn't so much "Have a way with words" , He HAD HIS WAY WITH THEM. He was king of the double entendre and innuendo.

Basically the story is this, a somewhat middle aged guy in Rolls Royce accidently knocks 15 year old Melody off her bikey. The old codger and the red-headed nymphette end up having a passionate affair coupled with a few ensueing entaglements due to their gap in age. In the end, little Melody dies in a plane wreck, leaving our man out in the cold.

Not the stuff of typical rock opera, but I'd say as far as "concept" albums go, this is one of the greatest next to SGT. Pepper's. It's sexy, twisted, eloquent, not to mention down right quirky. I couldn't give you a favorite song, they're all part of the whole mesmerizing cycle.

Man this is a lecherous record, but lechery never felt so good. This has got to be up there as the coolest half hour of tunes ever made. You must own this. One of the top twenty albums of the 70's for sure. Really creepy but amazing. The sea change comparison is on point, but this album is much less languid, and much more intriguing and exciting. Buy it and creep yourslef out as you think how cool it is.

All of the praised heaped upon this album is justified. It is a stone cold classic and deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as Sgt. Peppers, Revolver, Pet Sounds, Highway 61 Revisited, Exile on Main Street etc. The fact that Rolling Stone couldn't find a place for it on its 'definitive' top 500 (!) albums of all time is frankly ridiculous - it should be in the top 20 of anyone's list. The music is sparse, funky, atmospheric, sexy, with some of the best bass lines in Serge's catalogue. And with Serge's tradmark whisper floating over the top of the brilliant arrangements it sounds like nothing else out there, with the exception of Air and Beck's 'Sea Change' of course! (the reviewer who pointed out the similarity between Beck's 'Paper Tiger' and this album is spot on - in fact it's the string arrangements on the first two tracks that have most obviously influenced that song). So, all in all, this is Serge's finest moment, and yet strangely his most accessible - certainly as good a place as any for the curious to start to delve into Serge's fascinating career. And, as a bonus, this just has to be the coolest record of all time, complete with one of the best covers in music. Buy it and start your Serge obsession today.

According to Beck, this album is "one of the greatest marriages of rock band and orchestra...It's very cool and its dynamic is genius - there's this band that's completely rocking on this almost acid tangent, but they're buried in the mix with him (Gainsbourg) whispering on top, and he's the loudest thing on it." The song "Paper Tiger" on Beck's Sea Change 2002 album is a fairly nice tribute to Melody Nelson.

A perfectly realized concept album, a sonically inventive poem of perversion, Melody Nelson was hailed by few critics of its time, failing to become a hit, even in France. Today we can better appreciate its magnitude, with disciples like Air, Beck and David Holmes successfully slipping the Serge sound into the musical mainstream.

This is the version to get. Light in the Attic gave this record the red carpet treatment: translated lyrics, interviews, remastering, and original packaging... damn, even the record label mimics the original Philips label! Amazing sonics, amazing music. Forget the other issues... get this one!