serge and charlotte gainsbourg--"lemon incest" classic or dud?

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uh yeah.

― amateur!!!st (amateurist), Tuesday, 31 August 2004 05:37 (nineteen years ago) link

Totally classic. I'd love to see the video.

― Michael F Gill (Michael F Gill), Tuesday, 31 August 2004 05:58 (nineteen years ago) link

This truly amazing DVD just came out in France. It contains the video for "Lemon Incest" in its entirety along with about 30 other videos and television performances I never even knew existed!!! (It's PAL region 2 - reason enough to get a region free player that converts to NTSC if you need to).

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Tuesday, 31 August 2004 07:10 (nineteen years ago) link

Actually, it appears to have been released a while ago, but my video store just stocked it...

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Tuesday, 31 August 2004 07:28 (nineteen years ago) link

ah, another opportunity to ask someone to ID a recent(?) cover version of this. Google no help at all (lots of dubious site hits as you might imagine).

It's sort of electronic, with a clickety-poppity syncussion track running through it. Later on, a funky guitar comes in. At one point, the singer sounds like her dad is taking her from behind while she's trying to sing the song(!). Any ideas who the artist might be?

― zebedee (zebedee), Tuesday, 31 August 2004 11:14 (nineteen years ago) link

It might be Mick Harvey's version.

― Guymauve (Guymauve), Tuesday, 31 August 2004 11:54 (nineteen years ago) link

At one point, the singer sounds like her dad is taking her from behind while she's trying to sing the song(!).

i'm not sure if i want to know what gave you this impression....

― amateur!!st, Tuesday, 31 August 2004 14:44 (nineteen years ago) link

I actually think this is a very bad song. I'm not bothered by the dodgy lyrical content, it's more the shite '80s production that I'm not impressed by. I feel that this was the moment when 'Nazi Rock' Serge was finally replaced by 'Love On The Beat' Serge.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Tuesday, 31 August 2004 15:52 (nineteen years ago) link

squeal, sound of forehead knocking against microphone, "wait, dad, wait"

― -t-, Tuesday, 31 August 2004 15:53 (nineteen years ago) link

post, xposted, joke ruined

― -t-, Tuesday, 31 August 2004 15:54 (nineteen years ago) link

This truly amazing DVD just came out in France.

!!! I rather think I need that.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 31 August 2004 15:56 (nineteen years ago) link

i think the steeply-ascending vocal part on the bridge, where charlotte's voice just cracks and cracks and finally squeaks (hmmm), is bizarrely amazing. it wouldn't work without the almost antiseptic backing track.

― amateur!!st, Tuesday, 31 August 2004 15:59 (nineteen years ago) link

total xtc.

― stirmonster, Tuesday, 31 August 2004 18:17 (nineteen years ago) link

god Gainsbourg sucks

― Matos W.K. (M Matos), Tuesday, 31 August 2004 18:17 (nineteen years ago) link

i'm eager to hear the reason why you think so

― amateur!!st, Tuesday, 31 August 2004 18:24 (nineteen years ago) link

if someone sucks in this thread, it is you matos.

― alex in mainhattan (alex63), Tuesday, 31 August 2004 18:45 (nineteen years ago) link

now we'll never get anywhere

― amateur!!st, Tuesday, 31 August 2004 18:46 (nineteen years ago) link

There is neither funky guitar nor girl singer on the Mick Harvey cover.

I like the song. Charlotte obviously inherited her mother's singing skills (well, early Birkin anyway)(although it's probably just because of Gainsbourg's tendency to make his singers sing in a higher than natural register.)

― tokyo rosemary (rosemary), Tuesday, 31 August 2004 19:02 (nineteen years ago) link

Totally classic. I'd love to see the video.
-- Michael F Gill (rain19...), August 31st, 2004.

i've reported you to the FBI, michael.

― amateur!!st, Tuesday, 31 August 2004 19:03 (nineteen years ago) link

Although for bad ("bad"?) 80s Gainsbourg with a not the best female singer, my favorite is the Catherine Deneuve album.

― tokyo rosemary (rosemary), Tuesday, 31 August 2004 19:05 (nineteen years ago) link

yeah, "bad" in scare quotes is probably a good way to describe it. i don't think i could handle that much of this sort of thing (musically that is; i certainly couldn't handle many more father-daughter incest-themed duets) but it works as a novelty.*

*i don't mean to denigrate the song by this.

― amateur!!st, Tuesday, 31 August 2004 19:08 (nineteen years ago) link

don't forget the adjani album. one of the great things about gainsbourg: he made the most beautiful (french) women sing for him. bardot. birkin. deneuve. adjani. vanessa paradis. yes and they all had to sing quite high. like young girls.

― alex in mainhattan (alex63), Tuesday, 31 August 2004 19:15 (nineteen years ago) link

i don't really like that aspect of gainsbourg-appreciation. i wonder if that has something to do with matos's hatred.

― amateur!!st, Tuesday, 31 August 2004 19:16 (nineteen years ago) link

they had to sing in their most sexy voices for him.

― alex in mainhattan (alex63), Tuesday, 31 August 2004 19:17 (nineteen years ago) link

Yeh Yeh music and its appreciation, C or D? (See also Girl Group music and its appreciation)

forgot about that thread

― amateur!!st, Tuesday, 31 August 2004 19:18 (nineteen years ago) link

and they did it! though he was the ugliest macho in all of paris.

― alex in mainhattan (alex63), Tuesday, 31 August 2004 19:18 (nineteen years ago) link

how is the play-acting of sexual submission necessarily cool?

― amateur!!st, Tuesday, 31 August 2004 19:20 (nineteen years ago) link

Gainsbourg is unassailably classic

― Gear! (Gear!), Tuesday, 31 August 2004 19:21 (nineteen years ago) link

Birkin wasn't French!

― tokyo rosemary (rosemary), Tuesday, 31 August 2004 19:22 (nineteen years ago) link

yeah, but problematic too. i don't really like what often seems to be an uncritical appreciation of "french pop"... see the other thread i guess.

― amateur!!st, Tuesday, 31 August 2004 19:22 (nineteen years ago) link

xpost

birkin was half french i thought

― amateur!!st, Tuesday, 31 August 2004 19:23 (nineteen years ago) link

that should be in the present tense

― amateur!!st, Tuesday, 31 August 2004 19:24 (nineteen years ago) link

listening to that adjani album almost gives me a hard-on. the music is early 80s keyboard-dominated fusion shite but her voice! she is whispering and aspirating. i mean all those french actors they were no born singers but gainsbourg managed to make them sing in an unforgettable way. thanks serge.

― alex in mainhattan (alex63), Tuesday, 31 August 2004 19:27 (nineteen years ago) link

What is the FBI doing at my door?

xpost

― Michael F Gill (Michael F Gill), Tuesday, 31 August 2004 19:29 (nineteen years ago) link

No, both Birkin's parents were British.

― tokyo rosemary (rosemary), Tuesday, 31 August 2004 19:30 (nineteen years ago) link

you are correct!

she still looks v. good btw

― amateur!!st, Tuesday, 31 August 2004 19:31 (nineteen years ago) link

she WAS british. but she is FRENCH now. i think she has forgotten how to speak english (it seems like that). in concerts she only sings french songs, mainly by gainsbourg.

― alex in mainhattan (alex63), Tuesday, 31 August 2004 19:34 (nineteen years ago) link

but she still hasn't lost her little english accent. but almost.

― alex in mainhattan (alex63), Tuesday, 31 August 2004 19:35 (nineteen years ago) link

Ok, but who decides what is "uncritical" appreciation and what is "critical"?

― tokyo rosemary (rosemary), Tuesday, 31 August 2004 19:35 (nineteen years ago) link

David Fricke, I hear. But I find this a poor standard.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 31 August 2004 19:39 (nineteen years ago) link

i dunno, rosemary. it's just my opinion.

i don't think that everyone ought to subject the french pop they like to some kind of ideological litmus test, or produce some sort of disclaimer before they commence to celebrate it. just that, like a i often discover a kind of uncritical reaction ("it's french! it's pop! it's great!") that isn't really fair to the music. i think sometimes--i'm not sure, on the other thread i talk about being confused and ambivalent about it--that a certain (lazily????) ironic nostalgia for an era of different (regressive?) gender roles factors into this.

― amateur!!st, Tuesday, 31 August 2004 19:45 (nineteen years ago) link

GOOD CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 31 August 2004 19:49 (nineteen years ago) link

gainsbourg is french, granted. but he has nothing to do with french pop. he always did what he wanted to do. sometimes with success, sometimes without.

― alex in mainhattan (alex63), Tuesday, 31 August 2004 19:49 (nineteen years ago) link

how could he have nothing to do with french pop? he was a huge french pop star!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 31 August 2004 21:35 (nineteen years ago) link

Ok, so on the Cosby Show rerun right now Clair is watching ballet on TV, and I believe the music playing in the background is the Chopin piece (Etude No.3 op.10?) that is the basis for "Lemon Incest."

Cosby + Gainsbourg = my head hurts.

― tokyo rosemary (rosemary), Monday, 6 September 2004 01:51 (nineteen years ago) link

Not related but the "Lemon Incest" single is the only Gainsbourg on vinyl that I own.

― tokyo rosemary (rosemary), Monday, 6 September 2004 01:54 (nineteen years ago) link

i had no idea this was based on a chopin piece! my hat is off to you for adding that bit of knowledge to my brane.

p.s. did my response to your query satisfy you?

p.p.s. is it a picture sleeve? if so what is the picture?

― amateur!!!st (amateurist), Monday, 6 September 2004 03:52 (nineteen years ago) link

five years pass...

omg classic!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-O5MZfsolg

that provocative devil

― 102. LJ: British. 5. (acoleuthic), Wednesday, 9 December 2009 04:09 (fourteen years ago) link

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it's so rare nowadays you find a good pop song about a dad who wants get sexy with his offspring with a quality dance-beat..

― 102. LJ: British. 5. (acoleuthic), Wednesday, 9 December 2009 04:12 (fourteen years ago) link

ah, back in the 1980s, those songs were a dime a dozen

― figuratively, but in a very real way (amateurist), Wednesday, 9 December 2009 04:33 (fourteen years ago) link

one month passes...

I've just listened to this for the first time and I am absolutely stunned. No words other than wow! Had this been released today, Gainsbourg would have gone straight to jail, no questions asked.

― one boob is free with one (daavid), Thursday, 4 February 2010 20:22 (fourteen years ago) link

exquise esquisse, délicieuse enfant

― saaberonixx (baaderonixx), Friday, 5 February 2010 09:13 (fourteen years ago) link

yeah, it would clearly be impossible for a major artist to release something like this nowadays...
I like the song but mainly for what he took from chopin.

― AlXTC from Paris, Friday, 5 February 2010 10:18 (fourteen years ago) link

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