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Histoire De Melody Nelson
 
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Histoire De Melody Nelson
~ Serge Gainsbourg (Artist)
5.0 out of 5 stars  (7 customer reviews)

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9 used & new available from £11.84

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Product details
  • Audio CD (26 Oct 1998)
  • Number of Discs: 1
  • Label: Mercury
  • ASIN: B000006RIL
  • Other Editions: Audio CD
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  (7 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 223,983 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Track Listings

1. Melody
2. Ballade De Melody Nelson
3. Valse De Melody
4. Ah Melody
5. L'hotel Particulier
6. En Melody
7. Cargo Culte

Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
This, Gainsbourg's first conceptually realised album, is one of his finest moments. The seven tracks here, recorded in 1971, detail his infatuation, lust, blossoming love for and loss of a (very) young girl named Melody Nelson. In "Melody" he knocks a girl off her bike in his Silver Ghost Rolls Royce and, intoxicated by this red-headed English teenager carrying a rag doll, begins a relationship with her. Set to a fragile breakbeat and bowed guitar, the music is majestic, preening. A guitar shimmers dangerously close to a violent outbreak of feedback before settling back into its reverberating motif; strings erupt and soar like a bird of prey. "Ballad Of Melody Nelson", the single off the album, is lilting and light-spirited, buoyed by chiming string arrangements and crystalline acoustic guitar. With its waltz speed and structure, "'Valse De Melody" evokes carefree summer days and the giddy excitability of a fresh romance. "L'Hotel Particulier" narrates the memory of a secret liaison, ending with reconciliation in a Rococo-themed bedroom. It gives way to "En Melody", a brash funk instrumental overpowered by whinnies and snorts let out by Jane Birkin in the midst of sexual horse-play. Like a dream, the album closes with "Cargo Culte"; like a demon brother it adds an atmosphere of doom and gloom to the airy infatuation of the opening track. On returning to her native England, Melody's plane has crashed. In Gainsbourg's imagination, she has become a living sacrifice to a mechanical cargo cult. All that is left are the tortured and twisted bodily remains of his love. Consequently, the guitar melodies have become deliberately detuned, and a 70-piece gothic choir lends a funereal aspect to this requiem for the doomed romantic. --Chris Campion

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Customer Reviews

7 Reviews
5 star: 100%  (7)
4 star:    (0)
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Average Customer Review
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Je T'aime, Gainsbourg., 21 Sep 2003
By D. Stewart "duglas" (Glasgow, Scotland United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
I don't speak or understand the French language, I stopped drinking alcohol 20 years ago and don't smoke 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 breast. Jane told me in an interview 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 had a completely unique 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 Birkin 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 mus