Cheap L'Homme a Tete De Chou (Music) (Serge Gainsbourg) Price

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Customer Reviews of L'Homme a Tete De Chou

Storytelling with minimal instrumental backing
Five years after the masterpiece "Histoire de Melody Nelson", Serge Gainsbourg recorded another concept album. Like on "Melody Nelson", most songs on "L'homme à tête de chou" are spoken storytelling with instrumental accompaniment. On "Melody Nelson" the instrumental parts were played by an orchestra and a rock band but on this album it's a band alone. The music is even more minimalistic than on "Melody Nelson" though there are a few dramatic parts. At first I thought that this album isn't even real music, just storytelling with some instrumental backing. And I thought that it would be completely impossible to listen to for somebody who doesn't speak French. But after listening to it for a few times, I realized I had been wrong. The music may be extremely minimalistic but it's definitely good music. And there are a few songs with sung vocals, most notably "Marilou sous la neige" (Marilou Under the Snow). My French isn't perfect so there's a lot in the lyrics that I don't understad. But despite this, it's not hard to see that "L'homme à tête de chou" is a masterpiece.

There are also a lot of bonus tracks on this cd release. "L'ami caouette" is a lot of fun. And so is "Sea, Sex and Sun", a disco song which is probably meant to be self-parody. The English version is even funnier in all its sleaziness. "Good-Bye Emmanuelle" is from an erotic movie with the same title, perhaps not Gainsbourg at his best. "Le Cadavre Exquis" and "My Lady Heroine" are a lot better. In the end of the cd there are two excellent songs are from an album that Gainsbourg wrote for Catherine Deneuve. "Ces petits ries" was actually written already 15 years earlier. A very different version of it can be found from the album Percussions.

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One of the essential records to understand Gainsbourg music
This record is one of the most important records in Gainsbourg's discography. It shows him desperate, inspired by the reigns of the departed woman, of the lost sex provider, and the poetic femme fatale, all recalled by a lunatic, alcoholic poet who struggles with his pain in a majestic monologue of illness and madness. I am an not an english (excellent) speaker, but, as the Melody Maker magazine rates, I rate this record BLOODY ESSENTIAL, I mean it, please, I really mean it... Sergio Coddou copoval@cmet.net

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A major contribution to French poetry and music
Gaisnbourg was to French music what Miles Davis was to Jazz: A multi-talented artist, poet, song-writter, composer, innovator, talent recruiter, stage star, drug-addict, semi-shy, semi-bitter, semi-provocative, man of minority. He started with traditional Jazz and French music. He explored, created, and fusioned many styles, most of them excellent. Without him, French music would be missing several major facets of its modern scene.

This album is a key contribution in at least three ways: 1)It's his most accomplished story-album, where he walks the listener through his relationship with a frivolous lover. (structured a bit like a rock-opera). 2) the poetry is incredible beautiful and erotic 3)it uses "broken rhymes", one of Gainsbourg's inventions.

WARNING: If you think you can appreciate this album or artist by listening to a 20 sec. clip, than you probably won't like it. If you speak French, like Baudelaire, Verlaine, Chopin,(which Gainsbourg often recomposes in pop-style), edonism, and dislike puritans, P.C. people and you can sit still and experience an album for 45 mns, then you'll probably end up enthoused by this masterpiece.