The problem or the genuine delight, there is not one Serge Gainsbourg album to purchase. I shudder when someone asks me advice with respect to choosing their first Serge album. My honest reaction is to buy them all! Although when push comes to a shove or a kick, I would easily recommend the box set called "Mister Melody." What makes it unique is that it's 4 cd's that covers every major (and nonmajor) period in Gainsbourg's music career. Besides making his own albums, his bread and butter job was writing songs for other artists. This CD Box Set focuses on Serge Gainsbourg as the composer (or co-songwriter).
I bought this album at the Charles de Gaulle Airport, just right before I enter my plane back to Los Angeles. It's funny that I couldn't find anything to buy for myself in Paris, and it was at the airport that I found the greatest music package. For a package that has almost 100 songs, it's rich with quality. There are the songs that we all know and love with Brigitte Bardot, Jane Birkin, and France Gall, but it's the rare or unknown cuts, at least for this American, that are the delights of this CD set. Marianne Faithfull's "Hier Ou Demain" is a standout track as well as recordings by Michèle Torr, Régine, Nico ("Strip Tease" - a wow), Catherine Sauvage and so forth.
Gainsbourg was a genius. He also worked with the best talents, such as arrangers Jean-Claude Vannier, Alain Goraguer, Michel Colombier - all of them superb and their talents were individualistic. Not all female artists, there are some male artists here as well. But Gainsbourg actually knew how to use the female's sensibility in getting his songs across to the public. "Mr. Melody" is clearly a work of many decades, and the one thing that is consistent is Gainsbourg's excellence throughout the years. Even the later years have their gems. Fantastic.
