I just brought my two sons to the station, leaving for their first solo trip to Paris. So this needs to be a French tune.
Serge Gainsbourg was a genius. Starting with chansons and clever lyrics in the late 50s, he soon made a point releasing music that always captured the spirit of the times, venturing off to some amazing groovy beat tunes with Brigitte Bardot, erotic ballads with Jane Birkin, funk, disco, reggae, and dub eventually. And I probably forgot a couple of genres as well.
Now, there are quite a few tunes and albums you could pick but his masterpiece in my opinion is the long player Histoire de Melody Nelson. Driven by an amazing bassline courtesy of Herbie Flowers (see Lou Reed ‘Walk On The Wild Side’) and amazing string arrangements by (another genius) Jean-Claude Vannier, this is some psychedelic funk of the highest order.
Again, all you vinyl lovers out there: Tunes For The Weekend is not about how many rare records I own but about how many non-vinyl collectors I can tickle out of their comfort zone and perhaps post a tune that you haven’t heard in quite a while. I absolutely don’t care if you got an OG pressing sitting on your shelf at home. What difference does it make?
Picture © Claude Truong-Ngoc 1981
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