There are some really awesome artists who are either obscure (Cornershop, Unwound) or have massive discographies that are off-putting to the neophyte (The Fall, Neil Young). To help you out a bit, I’ll be doing a monthly column called the Starter Guide, where I discuss the artist’s work and their impact, give you a few tips on where to begin and some associated artists you can check out for context. We’ll begin with the figure who, 20 years on, continues to tower over French popular music and culture: Serge Gainsbourg.
I am a huge fan of anything French. The food, the art, the couture, the literature, the cinema, you name it. I’ve even attempting to learn the language (I can read it alright, but my friend Adele delights in informing me I’m quite dreadful at speaking it). Of course, as a massive music fan, my love for all things Gallic has extended into my music collection, where artists such as Serge Gainsbourg, Françoise Hardy, Yelle and Stereolab now sit next to my English-language fare.
In French-language music, Serge Gainsbourg is an inescapable presence. In the English-speaking world, his peers in terms of influence are the Beatles, Bob Dylan and Elvis, while in South Asia, there’s Asha Bhosle and Lata Mangeshkar. It may be helpful to think in permutations of a few of those names. In the course of his career, he touched on kitschy lounge-pop, reggae, dance-pop, jazz and even classical music, blending his magpie approach to music into immaculately structured chansons with perfect (albeit occasionally rather dark) lyrics. Like Madonna or Damon Albarn, he was a mainstream figure who had the ability to absorb the innovations of the avant-garde and the underground and make them mainstream and accessible. For a brief period in the late 60s, he even managed to penetrate the consciousness of America’s notoriously xenophobic music-buying public. Due to his overfondness for Gitanes and alcohol, he passed away in the early 90s, but his influence is still absolutely massive. Air, Sonic Youth, Beck, Franz Ferdinand, Portishead, Cat Power and (especially) Pulp have all drunk deep from the well of Gainsbourg.

Where to begin: The 13-track compilation The Originals will do quite nicely if you feel overwhelmed. It includes his only Anglophone-world hit with “Je T’aime… Moi Non Plus,” which 40 years on still has the power to shock. The rest of the compilation surveys his various incarnations quite neatly. Make sure you buy/otherwise obtain the one with the white sleeve, as the black-sleeved one is a covers record. For the full-length albums, Histoire de Melody Nelson is a haunting jewel of a record that every music fan should own, while Jane Birkin et Serge Gainsbourg is a charming bit of sexy and sophisticated Franco-pop. Both are either out-of-print or only available as insanely expensive imports in the US and the UK, so you needn’t worry about the whole downloading conundrum.

Associated acts: You needn’t bother with Jane Birkin’s solo work. You may feel differently, but I personally feel she really can’t sing. Brigitte Bardot has a better voice, but her solo material is largely pedestrian. Gainsbourg wrote the title track of Françoise Hardy’s 1968 album Comment Te Dire Adieu, her post-Vogue debut, which is well worth obtaining.

Related reading: There’s a very interesting article on Vanity Fair about Serge that I highly recommend you read if you’re at all interested in him.

NEXT MONTH: Cornershop - much more than “Brimful of Asha.”