From St. Tropez To Paree

Artists

Album Info

Release Date: 2011-02-11

Label: Él

Serge Gainsbourg was known outside France primarily for the heavy-breathing masterpiece J'taime moi non plus but to those at home he stood as the ultimate rebel artist. His poetry was compared to Rimbaud and Baudelaire, his morality to the Marquis de Sade. He wrote and directed four controversial movies, published a scurrilous novel, his records were often denounced as obscene and he was perpetually embroiled in scandal, whether for turning up drunk on a TV show and offering to F*** fellow guest Whitney Houston, recording a reggae version of Le Marseillaise or burning a 500 franc banknote on prime-time TV.

Gainsbourg was surely the only man ever to have written hit songs about the joys of incest, sodomy, motorcycles and cigarettes and to still be awarded the Chevalier Des Arts et Lettres, his country¹s highest artistic honour. Summarising his approach to life and art, he said: "Without controversy it would all be very boring" and "For me, provocation is oxygen."

Gainsbourg died in 1991, since when his influence and popularity have only grown. His life is celebrated in Joann Sfar's recent film, Serge Gainsbourg - une vie heroique (Serge Gainsbourg - a heroic life).

Brigitte Bardot, BB, La bebe, is a symbol of the age of the Pill and the Playboy philosophy. After her first film at the age of 17 she was catapulted to fame. Her beauty and unashamed senuality are well known, it's arguable that no woman has ever created a greater impact on her times and film-makers, actresses and designers continue to pour through the doors of permisssivity she kicked open with elan.

At the dawn of the 1960's, as Gainsbourg was busy establishing himself as the enfant terrible of chansons, Bardot, having already struck the first cinematic blow for women's liberation with 'And God created Woman', was France's biggest star and the symbol for a new breed of femininity and sexuality that would change the world...