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Off the beaten path, this year has been all about the Gainsbourgs, with a film and album for father Serge and a film and album for daughter Charlotte. Said album for Serge is a tribute called From Gainsbourg To Lulu, put together by none other than son Lulu. The album boasts a number of big names, featuring covers by Scarlett Johansson, Rufus Wainwright, Iggy Pop, and why we're here today -- a duet by husband and wife Johnny Depp and Vanessa Paradis.

Depp (not a singer) and Paradis (actually a singer) sound super French on their rendition of "Ballade De Melodie Nelson." Paradis carries the weight while Depp chimes in occasionally to say "Melodie Nelson" in a breathy voice, which makes him sound either like a psycho killer or French lover, we're not sure.

Listen:

Johnny Depp and Vanessa Paradis – Ballade de Melody Nelson (Serge Gainsbourg cover) by rfp86

Rufus Wainwright gives a more enjoyable,...

Over the weekend, musical types like Beck, Mike Patton, Zola Jesus, and Sean Lennon performed at a giant tribute to the late, great Serge Gainsbourg at the Hollywood Bowl. The concert featured a live band and an orchestra conducted by Gainsbourg comrade Jean-Claude Vannier, and together, they performed the album "Melody Nelson" in its entirety.

Coming up last but never least on the full bill of performers was Monsieur Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who crooned/spoke a finger-snappin' cover of "Cargo Culte," the last track on "Melody Nelson."

Fans of Jgl and Gainsbourg alike were impressed by his vocal stylings, as well as his dapper duds, but really, what else would we expect from the savvy guy behind the multimedia project hitRECord? (Did we mention he's also playing possibly the cutest cancer patient ever?)

Check out the of Gordon-Levitt's performance below, and compare it to Gainsbourg's version here. (For poorer vid...

The Alamo Guide

for April 2nd, 2010

What a week! First of all, if you got caught in the fiasco of the ticketing site for Weird Al last Friday, we’d like to apologize. We greatly underestimated how excited people were about this event, and it sold out in mere minutes, completely destroying the ticket server. We are, however, in talks with Weird Al’s posse about the possibilities of a second show, so sit tight and we’ll give you details as they come!

Lately, it has been crazy gorgeous outside. I guess this is the “nice” weather that comes around once a year. We’re taking advantage of it, this week specifically. We have two outdoor screenings! Tomorrow (Thursday), we’ve partnered with Amoa again to screen Nashville at the beautiful Laguna Gloria! Saturday, Tim and Karrie League are opening their home for a MS150 BeneFeast screening of Triplets Of Belleville!

C’est si bon. Actress, singer, and femme fatale Charlotte Gainsbourg’s forthcoming CD, Irm, was produced by Beck, who years ago said one of his favorite albums was Histoire de Melody Nelson, the pièce de résistance recorded by Charlotte’s parents, Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin. Over the past year, Charlotte traveled to Los Angeles for the pas de deux with Beck, and, she says, entre nous, “I first met him before I did my last record with [producers] Air. The idea of working together began two years ago, then things just happened as I came to L.A. to start on a few songs.” The result: an enigmatic, varied, and sonically complex tour de force that features Charlotte’s whispery vocals in both French and En­glish. “Beck has such unlimited creativity,” she says. “He could go in every possible direction. He did everything; I had to react to what he was playing,...

Morally reprehensible, musically enthralling

Panning Serge Gainsbourg’s most celebrated concept record for being perverse is a bit like damning Bob Dylan for being coy. Sure, between lover and muse Jane Birkin’s faux (but pregnant!) nymphet pose on the cover and the album’s basic concept (old man hits young teen with Rolls, compromises her in a cheap motel and then loses her to a plane crash), you can run out of eyebrows to raise. But the magic of Gainsbourg’s Lolita is its essential surrealism juxtaposed with incredible musicianship. As the grinding guitars and trembling drum lines of “Cargo Culte” propel Melody Nelson’s 707 across the gaze of a cheering Guinean cargo cult and into the sea, the album’s undertone of macabre spirituality emerges as a thing of beauty. What’s more, Andy Votel’s encyclopedic liner notes and a Gainsbourg interview make this version the definitive reissue for the as-yet unsullied.

Serge Gainsbourg already had a well-established reputation for outrage when he released Histoire De Melody Nelson in 1971. He sent a teenage France Gall up the charts singing a song about enjoying a sucker, without alerting her to the lyrics’ double meaning. The orgasmic vocal additions of his lover Jane Birkin earned “Je T’aime… Moi Non Plus” a denunciation from the Vatican in 1969. (Both songs still became European hits.) In later years, some of Gainsbourg’s provocations started to feel hollow, like a duet with his adolescent daughter Charlotte called “Lemon Incest.” But Melody Nelson, a concept album ...

The cover shoot that Lily Cole does for the October 2008 edition of French Playboy magazine has been unveiled. The pose, which raised controversy from a group of people even before it is released, sees her wearing nothing but a pair of white socks. She's pictured clutching at a giant pink teddy bear to cover her naked breasts and modesty. Sporting pigtails, she pouts seductively into the camera.

The shoot is inspired by the cover of late French musician Serge Gainsbourg's 1971 album "Histoire de Melody Nelson". Besides being featured on the cover, Lily as well poses in a variety of raunchy shots inside the magazine across a 14-page spread.

Sitting for what French Playboy's fashion director Alex Aikiu branded as "very intimate, very psychological" interview, Lily justifies her nude cover shoot for the publication, saying "Nudity has always existed in art, and I think that, given the right conditions, it...