The Underground of Happiness

27 tunes to mark the 27th anniversary of Serge Gainsbourg's death in March 1991. The Provocateur Extraordinaire. Playlist Serge Gainsbourg & Jane Birkin – Je t’aime (moi non plus) Serge Gainsbourg – Le poinconneur des Lilas Mick Harvey feat. Anita Lane – The song of slurs Serge Gainsbourg & Brigitte Bardot – Initials B.B. Serge Gainsbourg – Mambo miam miam Jane Birkin – C’est la vie qui veut ca Serge Gainsbourg & Jane Birkin – Ballade de Melody Nelson Jean-Claude Vannier – La girafe au ballon Charlotte Gainsbourg – Le chat du café des artistes Mick Harvey – Intoxicated Man Jean-Claude Vannier – Danse de l’enfant et du Roi des Mouches Anna Karina – Roller girl (from the soundtrack of the film Anna ) Michael Stipe – L’hotel Beck – Wave Charlotte Gainsbourg – Rest Serge Gainsbourg – New York USA Serge Gainsbourg & Jane Birkin – 69 Année Érotique Serge Gainsbourg & Michel Colombier – La Horse (from the soundtrack of the film La Horse )...

It’s been a little while since we had a dance set on the show. We had a good mini set in the middle this week. Charlotte Gainsbourg hooking up with SebastiAn to wonderful French disco effect. De Lux with the great sunbaked LA disco full of nagging synth lines. And SlowPlaceLikeHome with some lovely ambient electronica from the Atlantic north west (Donegal). Also another beautiful cut from the new Spindle Ensemble album. Light as air. The Sea & Cake giving vent to wonderful breezy jazz pop. Jon Brion from the Lady Bird OST making gorgeous quixotic music for pictures involving woodwind. And Django Django making music to make people who don’t know how to dance dance. More on these pages. The Underground of Happiness uplifting pop music of every creed www.theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com www.facebook.com/theundergroundofhappiness Twitter: UndergroundOfHappy Playlist 476 Tues Jan 30 2018 11.00am-12.00pm (repeated on Tuesdays 8.30pm...

File this in the 2017 “ones that got away” pile. A brilliant insistent minor key of an album which takes on the vast shadow of Serge and comes through with something authentic and individual and (for anyone with any interest in Serge) very poignant. The production by SebastiAn (with help from Brian Burton aka Danger Mouse and Guy-Manuel de Homem Christo of Daft Punk ) is crucially sympathetic to Gainsbourg’s voice which is by no means a powerful instrument. Where it is most effective is in its hush its intimacy and this is how the production locates it. Plus lyrically there is the inspired decision to address not just the loss of her father but also her half sister Kate (after whom one of the songs is named). The songs are shared between French and English (wisely most of the choruses are in English with the verses in French) as a nod to her joint heritage. Overall there is the sense of an update of Jean Claude Vannier’s Serge productions ( Melody Nelson in particular...